A picture-perfect day

At age 44, the fall of my life, I have finally become a leaf-peeper. As we headed out the door, I paused. "Should I bring the camera," I wondered and was immediately reassured by my husband and daughter that it would be unnecessary. Why on earth would I have even sought their counsel on such an important matter seeing that, when compared to mine, their combined ratio of life-time picture-taking ratio comes in at about 6:6,000?

The missed photographic opportunities were enough to take one's breath away. I don't count the autumnal hue because my cinematic skills just don't cut it but I definitely could have pulled off the timeless shot of three blonde-maned workhorses lifting feathered legs in heavy unison with a backdrop of muted red, orange, yellow and green hills. Then we entered a small town filled with squirrel statues the size of black bears. A blue mirror-ball disco squirrel. A brightly flowered squirrel. Caught without my camera, I could only cry out when we encountered the Ronald MacDonald squirrel, whirling to stare accusingly at Brad and Savannah, who, ashamed, were unable to meet my livid gaze.

As always, when we find ourselves in situations where I am in a full-blown tizzy, Brad quickly distracts me with food and animatronic woodland animals. So there I was, enjoying my lobster bisque and giggling each time the raccoon popped out the barrel nearby when my entree arrived:  Berries on a Cloud. My waitress introduced me to the assortment of syrups and I clapped my hands in delight as I anticipated filling each of the four quarters of my Belgian waffle with a different flavor. Brad gently pulled the apricot bottle from me as I wrestled to open it. "Why don't you dip your knife in first to see if you like it," he suggested, removing the lid. I frowned, as his suggestion delayed my slathering of several syrups. Okay, well, it turns out I don't like apricot. As I was making that alarming discovery, Brad had opened up the boysenberry for me to sample. Blimey! I hate boysenberry too. Well...I MUST like blueberry...the entire state of Maine depends on people liking their blueberries. Sorry, Maine. Now, instead of being festooned with flavor, my Berries on a Cloud floated on a single stream of maple syrup,

We were greeted with a light drizzle as we left and then rewarded with a full rainbow as we lapped a lake. A FULL rainbow. I sighed. This was the worse day EVER. Plus, combined with all the water elements of my ride, my two Pepsis turned out to be a bad decision for a day of leaf peeping. Brad pulled over by a closed-off bridge to read the historical marker which told us how some "Grandparents of the Future" once chained themselves to this bridge in an environmental protest, As interesting as that little tidbit was, my bladder was doing some protesting of its own so I cut our bridge tour short. As I raced into the house, I realized, camera or no, it had been a picture-perfect day.