autumn colors 2020

We had a bit of an adventure a few weeks ago when we decided to take a quick drive to the Missisisippi River Roads in search of autumn beauty. We intended to go down the Minneapolis side then up the St. Paul side then head home. We drove through the University of Minnesota’s east bank campus and intended to take the turn off the Washington Avenue bridge that takes you to the west bank campus but we both missed the offramp. I guess one positive of that mistake is now we know there aren’t terribly good options if you miss that offramp.  You either have to get on a freeway which we didn’t want to do, or you end up in downtown Minneapolis. All of a sudden we were driving past U.S. Bank Stadium where the Vikings normally play. Another positive: I had not seen it up close and personal so I can check that off the list. Ha!

We finally managed to make our way to the River Road near the 35W bridge collapse memorial and happily, finally headed south…..only to discover the road was closed at 2nd Street! Darn phone map didn’t show me that or I never would have headed that way. We made our way over 35W and travelled through the west bank campus and guessed at where the road blockage stopped. Finally, we made it to the East River Road! 

We stopped along the way so that I could capture the beautiful colors. In the galleries below are a mixture of photos I’ve taken throughout our brief but beautiful autumn. I hope you will enjoy.

First up, some close up photos. Starting with various colors of oak leaves, then several of maple leaves and a couple other close-ups:

And other autumn colors:

I’ve been putting this post together over the last couple of weeks and in that time we’ve had our first snowfall (on 10/20/20) so I thought it only fitting to include a snow-themed autumn scene at the end. I do love the colors in this photo but we didn’t really get a full autumn as you can see. But at publication most of the snow has melted, alas, more is on the way? I’ve lived here 28 years and we’ve never had snow in October. We missed the Halloween blizzard that happened the year before we moved here. Very unusual weather we’re having!