Niagara Falls and fall foliage wrap-up

This is a final entry about my fall foliage trip, very much overdue.

I decided to pay a short visit to Niagara Falls on my way back home. I caught the very end of fall foliage there. The foliage that was more sheltered away from the falls seemed to still be much fuller than right by the main flow of the river:

Compared to:

The main river was still pretty, but it was harder to find a spot that showed very much fall color. Along the river I saw some trees with interesting vines growing in them that turn bright red in the fall:

I was able to revisit a couple of favorite spots in the park and see some I missed the first time. It was really nice to be able to walk the park without paying quite as much attention to avoiding overdoing it as I had to a year and a half earlier.

Now for some closing thoughts:

I lived in California for many years, where there certainly are trees that change color, but it's much more spread out over months and the trees are fewer and farther between. In the part of the country where fall foliage is a bigger deal, some years are better than others. I'd always heard about fall foliage in New England, so I had this idea that it was better up there. Now I'm not so sure. When I returned home I saw the tail end of the fall display of color in my neighborhood. This is looking out my back door:

And this is looking down the street past where my van is parked:

This next one is taken from a better angle, but the photo came out dark and I had to lighten the sky too much to show the color of the trees:

It turns out that fall foliage isn't an event, it's a process. I never really noticed that before, but it's so very plain to see now. Traveling through different latitudes and elevations in the Northeast part of the country, I passed through various stages of the process, and missed some of them by getting a bit of a late start and others by moving around so much.

After my experiences on this trip, I wish I could spend a month (or six weeks or whatever it takes) in a spectacular spot for fall foliage and watch it all unfold. My street is nice, but not spectacular like some of the photos I've included previously. I have learned from my friend who lives in a much more spectacular place that first the red leaves turn, peak, start to fall; then the yellow leaves do the same. There is overlap, and there are also orange leaves and the leaves that are part red and green at the same time, but the overall trend is red first, yellow last. Driving down the road I'd go a long stretch without seeing very many leaves still on trees, and I'd start to think that I'd left fall foliage territory. Then I'd get to a grove of trees that are still in full color and realize that another important factor is simply the variety of trees that I'm passing by.