Seasons

The changing of seasons often happens quickly in the Texas Panhandle where I lived for most of my life.  One day the thermometer reads 80 degrees and the next day it snows.  In the Fall, the leaves start falling before they have time to change colors.  Since moving to North Texas, I’ve been impatiently waiting to see all the variety of trees changing colors.

East Texas Fall

My sweet hubby drove me a couple of hours further east to see if I could find some fall color to photograph.  Because of the heavy rains the last few weeks, some of the leaves had already fallen or were a dull brown or orange.  However, other trees were just  beginning to change.  It wasn’t the blaze of orange, red and purple I wanted to see; but I found that if you looked I could still find the colors.

Lots of variety of oranges — if you look
out and over the tops of the trees.
It was a really cloudy, gray day when we started our drive.

We decided to try the Pinewoods Autumn Trail — Athens, Texas to Palestine, Texas.  We left the Dallas area on US Highway 175.  There were lots of gorgeous trees; but there just wasn’t a lot of fall color.  As we passed through Athens, we found a few pretty orange trees.  We veered off the trail to check out Davey’s Dogwood Park — a small; but beautiful park near Palestine, Texas.  Fall colors could be found in the park; but we’d missed the bright reds of the dogwoods. Other trees had lost their leaves and some were still in the process of changing.

Many leaves were already on the ground at
Davey Dogwood Park near Palestine, Texas.

Sometimes there’d be a great surprise
of color just around the bend.
Luckily, the sun came through the clouds
and everything looked a little brighter.

Other times, the only way to find the fall colors
was to look up at the top of the trees.

Sometimes, just a pop of red or orange
showed among the green trees.
I think these are a few red leaves left on a Dogwood Tree.
It would have been a glorious sight to see.

Even in their weather beaten state,
the leaves’ colors were amazing.

These leaves seemed to be demonstrating
photosynthesis just for us.
I’d have loved to bring some of these home with me because they looked so cool.  Unfortunately, we were in a park with signs advising against it.  (They were also up high on the tree!!)

According to the Texas Forest Trail website, “Davey Dogwood Park is home to more than 200 acres of picturesque roads meandering throughout the park…. This area includes over five and one-half miles of hard-surfaced roads.”  It’s a beautiful area!  I can’t wait to visit in the spring during the Dogwood Trails Festival.