Once again, Mother Nature has been showing off with her splendid fall colors.

She’s not fooling me though; I’m not falling for it. She’s pulled this trick on me for the last 56 years, and she’s at it again. Oh, sure, she makes it so gorgeous outside, what with the brilliant autumn hues on the trees, all the oranges and yellows, still some greens, even some reds. When she feels really smug, she throws in full sun and little to no wind. Soon, however, she will turn all the leaves brown, they will leave the trees bare, and the sky will be mostly gray for too long.

I’m on to her, and I’m not happy about her little trick. She woos us all with the beauty, sucks us all in with the splendor and then boom! It’s cold, windy and snowy again–just as it has been this weekend.

It is almost November in Kansas, however, so this should be nothing new to me. Still, every year it gets a little harder for me to let go of my beloved summer, because my favorite kind of weather is Florida.

As it does every fall, however, Colorado beckons us with its own breed of fall splendor with the aspens and their golden performance. Unfortunately, as with most trips west, Suzanne stayed behind to avoid the altitude sickness that typically plagues her. Plus, we had returned from our epic Florida trip just a few weeks before that (see previous post), and I just about stayed home myself. But, um, it’s Colorado. It was time to go west, even though we had just been east.

So, Gail and I went with our special guest: her daughter Lydia. She came along last year and remembered too well how much fun it is, so she joined us again. She is a delightful travel companion.

Our favorite mountain town destination welcomed us warmly once again. And, as is typically the case, none of us came home with extra money. However, we sure had fun trying. The aspens were a bit past their prime splendor, but they were still breathtakingly beautiful.

As they typically do when Gail and I travel together, Bonnie and Judy came along, too.

Returning home, the fall colors reminded me that there is a special part of fall that I love to partake of: milo harvest on the farm.

I typically visit during the wheat harvest, but Mother Nature, being the temperamental and scheming weather goddess she is, denied the wheat the moisture it needed throughout most of the growing season. Sadly, there was no wheat harvest last summer. Mercifully, however, there was an insurance check for most farmers who were affected by the drought, my brothers included.

The milo harvest has its own offerings, even when the drought kept the crop from reaching its full potential. I had the pleasure of riding in the combine with my nephew,

and taking the big rig to the elevator with the trailer full of grain with my brother.

The sun was shining, and the leaves were as beautifully aglow as they could possibly be. I stopped to take pictures along the way, and I even cruised Main Street in our hometown on my way home.

In north-central Kansas where our family farm is, and throughout most of the Midwest, the reds and greens take on another significance as well: most of the combines and tractors are either red or green. If, like ours, they are red, then they are indeed the best choice. Green, in the history of our family farm, has been the inferior color. If you have a farm background, then you know this is the age-old good-natured disagreement. You may beg to differ, so go ahead and differ. We are holding firm to the red.

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Black and white are two more colors I need to mention as well: Halloween is next week, and there are a few iconic pictures I’d like to re-post from our Colorado trip four years ago on Halloween:

Speaking of black and white, we took in some local culture in Cripple Creek we hadn’t yet seen–we visited the Teller County Jail Museum.

Lydia, with her millenial wisdom, was able once again to deejay our ritual song as we drive through the Rocky Mountains on our way there, just as she did last year. No CD player? No problem! No signal? No problem! She made it work.

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There isn’t much reality in our crazy world that is truly black and white, but in the The Sister Lode, we’d like to offer these truths–as we see them:

* Cripple Creek, and every other gambling town is not built on winners, so don’t ever plan on walking away with money from any casino. It’s a bonus if you do.

* Traveling, if you have any desire to do so, should be a priority. There is so much to see out there, so many places to go. Take your sisters along, if possible.

*Mother Nature, after her worst tirades, returns to Mother Nurture. The sun always shines again, and eventually it does rain again.

*Consider that your black and white may be someone else’s gray, and we respect your choice if it is green and not our beloved red.

*Leaving your leftovers outside in a soft-side cooler overnight in the mountains is never a good idea.

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Happy Halloween from the Sisters of The Sister Lode–and Lydia too.