This week’s challenge is Autumn. In North Dakota’s farm country, it’s harvest time and time for the harvest celebrations. At Bismarck’s Buckstop Junction, a pioneer village, it’s time for Applefest, an annual autumn weekend celebration. Displays like that shown in the opening photo are found throughout the upper midwest. Patti Moed brings us this week’s challenge. She writes, “What does autumn look like in your part of the world? What does this season mean to you personally?” You can read her entire challenge post here.

In our Fargo neighborhood, apartments and condos are shaded by several types of deciduous trees. As I left the house on an errand one fall day, the sun broke through the mostly cloudy sky giving me a spectacular view of the golden leaves that predominate our block when the leaves turn each year.

On a late September day, we ventured across the Red River into Minnesota and found our way to Maplewood State Park. Though the maximum color hadn’t yet been brought forth, the red and gold in the foreground punctuated the gold of the many changing trees in the background.

In October 2015, on our trip to North Carolina to visit our son and his wife, we toured Chapel Hill. I was struck by the beautiful fall foliage of the trees near a local pub.

On a late Autumn day, we traveled through Nebraska on our way to Arizona in 2018. The previous evening, light snow had fallen on the Nebraska Sandhills north of North Platte. We’d driven by on U.S. Highway 83 many times in previous years, but never had we seen the hills like this. The snow accentuated the dips and valleys in the terrain and really brought out the fluctuations in the terrain. Feel free to click on any image for a better view. If your browser supports it, you will get a full-screen view on a darker background to better view the photo details.