October is nice and long, just how I like it. The oaks get gold and stay gold; the aspens too have turned yellow, and gold, and stayed that way. The air is fresh and cool; the sky is blue, and sometimes there's a slight breeze.

Only two things lead me to believe that things are not perfect. One is that winter is slowly but surely approaching. We will all be driven inside for hours at a time. With covid cases spiking, this can only be bad news.

The other is that there are animals all over the place. I came upon an accident on the highway last night, and I don't know if it was caused by animals, but it could have been since right there is a dangerous spot, just this side of ski cloudcroft. Locals have a name for this spot but I don't know it; a road cuts off there that follows along the highway and then goes up behind ski cloudcroft where that guy was feeding bears a year or two back.

Anyway, someone lost a pretty nice truck, and people were shook up, and because I had to pay pretty close attention to get by both coming and going, I didn't quite pick up the details which of course were none of my business anyway. But I find the highway to be overall more dangerous than any other spot. There are deer and elk way out here in the country, of course, but we are generally only going about thirty or forty, and have a much better chance at both seeing them and stopping in time.

On the highway, on the other hand, they come up out of the ditch in moments, and they're on the road. You're going fifty five or thereabouts. They hesitate because basically they have to jump up on a steep cliff and they have to get ready to land on a very uneven surface. They can do it, but they have to be prepared.

I had two close calls on the highway. In one I came around a corner and there was a deer in my half of the lane, facing me, the driver, right near the center line. He was not moving, but I came upon him so quickly, around a corner and fifty-five, that all I could do was swerve though I tried using the brakes too. Swerving was enough, since he didn't move; I simply went around him with my tire ducking momentarily into the side of the road.

In the other I came around more or less the same corner and an elk rose from the side of the road; he was just coming up onto the road from the ditch. He wanted to cross, of course, and go up onto the cliff across the road. As he put his head up, his antlers went up high in glory as he seemed to look both ways. But he also appeared to see me, and hesitate. My luck. If he had stepped into the road I'm not sure I could have stopped in time.

Such stories are, I think, very common. It could just be the time of year. It's gorgeous out, yes, but the animals are on the move.