This year, as it often does, our Southern California autumn began hot. Early October was no joke, with temperatures above 100 here in Riverside. But all I heard from friends and neighbors on evening walks was, “I love October! Halloween is coming! And we’ve got the Dodgers!”
Everyone knows what people think about California — that we have no seasons here, especially no fall, no vivid foliage, no harvest festivals. But they don’t understand the brilliant, intense and colorful season that is October.
The colors are astonishing. Brochures always feature the same palm trees, but in October, it’s the big silk floss trees with their bright green trunks that burst into bloom with huge neon pink flowers, Seussian in their cartoonish loveliness.