Autumn around the world offers color, light, bold but wistful change

Autumn in the Beartooth Mountains in Montana's Northern Rockies, with splendid color and snow already down.

STORY By CHRISTENE MEYERS
PHOTOS By BRUCE KELLER

Leaves are beginning to turn as autumn blossoms enjoy the Oregon sun. 

PHOTOS, QUOTES LEAD THE WAY TO AUTUMN MEMORIES

"Autumn:  the year's last, loveliest smile....."
--William Cullen Bryant

FALL LENDS itself to a photo essay, so this one will feature some of our favorite autumn shots from our global wanderings.

The Whitehorse Pass Railway journey out of Skagway offers splendid color.

Keller and Cookie enjoy autumn in Tarragona, near Barcelona.

  My  Irish grandmother Olive always announced the arrival of fall. "It's feeling very autumnal to me," she'd say as that first chill crept in, forecasting a long Montana winter.  But she loved the smell of leaves burning in the alley, the aroma of chokecherry and plum jam simmering, windfalls from our pear tree and  autumn leave bouquets we kids fashioned.  She also played a wistful piano medley of fall songs.  Her favorites were Lotte Lenya's "September Song" and Mel Torme's "Autumn in New York."

Autumn comes to the northeast coast of Italy in the province of La Spezia.

So let these photos and fall quotes evoke your own particular autumn memories...... enjoy....

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is awakened."
--Albert Camus

"Autumn killed the summer with the softest kiss."
--Anonymous

A bighorn sheep looks over the ledge at twilight northwest of Nye, Montana. 

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the Earth seeking the successive autumns.”

--George Eliot

A male finch boasts the colors of autumn.

"Autumn is more the season of the 

soul than of nature."
-- Friedrich Nietzsch
 "Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all." 
--Stanley Horowitz




"If a year was tucked inside a clock, then autumn would be the magic hour."       
-- Victoria Erickson

UP NEXT: Perfect to usher in the autumn is an evening of brilliantly played classical guitar music.  A gifted interpreter of the instrument lives in Julian and drives his motorcycle twice a week to play in San Diego. Jesus Soriano, performs Tuesdays and Thursday evenings each week at Costa Brava restaurant in Pacific Beach.  You'll be transported via his dazzling artistry to the streets of Seville, Barcelona or Madrid, where the musician was born. Meanwhile, do remember to explore, learn and live, and catch us each Friday for a fresh look at art, music, nature, travel, family and more.