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Maybe Autumn Will Always be Magic

Once again it's here. My favorite time of year. Every year I am amazed to be so affected by the coming-on of cool weather. Some years I have been interested in analyzing this remarkable longevity. But this year, I just want to feel good about it and hope it keeps going year after year -- like my van!

In a similar vein, I love camping at tree islands in the Gunnison area, year after year. Last year I was in the mood for deconstructing the romanticism of this. But this year, it suffices to bask in it. Perhaps there is a natural dialectic going on here. One year I reconstruct the visualization that I deconstructed the previous year. Let's hope that the new version is better in some way than the earlier one.

There is something symbolic about tree islands -- something that is different than other features that people go ga-ga over. Oh sure, I am probably prone to some anti-tourist snobbery. But a natural feature ceases to have an effect on you when somebody sticks a bar-code on it. Tree islands are the kind of feature that creates an opportunity and challenge in visualization. Therefore they stay interesting, year after year.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I have a mental image of what "tree islands" are, but would you be so kind as to describe what they are and what makes them special in the Gunnison area?

Chris
Anonymous said…
Well, I went back to last year's post and saw the photos of "tree islands". Now I know.

Chris
I love tree islands wherever they are. My brother's area in the Palouse of eastern Wahington has a lot of tree islands.

Gunnison is just at the right altitude so that it has a lot of sagebrush/forest borderlands. Hence, a ragged "shoreline" separating sagebrush from yukky ol' forest.