With my departure near at hand (tomorrow), the day (Monday) was a perfect one and turned out special for me. As Labor Day slid quietly into history, Mother Nature had subtly dropped her Fall calling card for us: temperatures dipping down into the 50's at night, the need for heaters and sweaters in the chilly, early morning air; (sickly) sycamore and birch trees dropping their leaves, breezy days that hasten the dropping of the dead leaves of summer. I taught that when the first frost arrives and kills the green chlorophyll in leaves, it allows the other colors, already present in a leaf, to come forth and show off their colors beginning with the sugar maples. When you gaze upon a hillside dense with trees, the first ones to show color (yellow) will be sugar maples. Although the frost has yet to come, all other tell-tale signs of autumn mentioned above were evident today. The magnificent day almost forces one to get out into it and walk which is just what I did. This extensive campsite with hills and trails beckoned and so I gave it a shot.
The loop in which my site is located has many RVs, mostly Class A's and fifth wheels, or "fivers". As I began my walk I was taken over and thrown back into my childhood. Remember the enthusiasm and excitement of opening a new box of Corn Flakes or Wheaties and shoving your hand down and wiggling your fingers through the crispy flakes to get that prize that was included? One such prize was a miniature, metal license plate. The ones that would eventually wind up wired to the front handlebars or the back of the seat on your Huffy or Schwinn? Or, as a real collector, you shot for collecting all 48 states (then) to complete the set. Vivid memory. Today, as I walked down the road, I noticed that every single rig I passed had a different license plate (28 of them)....no duplicates until I got way down the end of my loop; it was either Texas or Florida. So what did I do? While walking only .9 of a mile in 35 minutes and, with camera in hand, I reached into my cereal box and pulled out the following:
That NY plate looks surprisingly familiar. I remember traveling down the Garden State Parkway and my brother, John, writing down the different state plates we saw. We never did see them all.
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