2016 Fall Foliage Map

One of the great joys of autumn is watching the trees turn brilliant colors. The Great Smokey Mountains National Park has an interactive map to help you plan your autumn road trips to coincide with the peak fall foliage in the 48 contiguous states. Use the slider at the site to check for the area of peak colors for every weekend. Scroll down on the page to find out more about the colors of fall. According to the map, during the week of October 21st, I will drive past a mountain and decide that this is the year I make a landscape quilt of the fall colors. I’ve been saying that for at least 25 years. Then a November rainstorm will bring all those leaves down, and I’ll be distracted by other holiday plans. -via mental_floss

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Thing I miss most about upstate New York is watching the mountains turn brilliant shades of red and orange. Really magnificent.
Here in LA we only have two seasons: the great burning and the great dying (with some cooler weather). Autumn doesn't really happen, the leaves just... get browner and fall off. To be honest I can't tell the difference between season induced shedding or just typical drought death.

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Growing up in Miami, I had read about the colors of autumn and seen pictures, but it wasn't until I was 18, on a road trip to northern Georgia, that I finally learned what the big deal was about. Where I grew up had mango, avocado, lime, and guava trees, and an orange tree hanging over from the neighbors' - none of which really turn color. It took a move to the north before I learned to recognize the (to me) exotic maple tree. It really did look like the Canadian flag!