Autumn Light

I drive to Portland at least once a month to visit my mother, who is in a nursing home with dementia, and my sister and whatever friends I have time to see. This last weekend, transitioning from October to November, was my day. I always drive the long, more scenic way up 99W through Polk and Yamhill counties. Saturday was a wet, gray drive through intermittent showers and downpours. The beauty of the drive was somewhat muted, and I avoided the shortcut from Newburg into Beaverton over Chehalem mountain and through Scholls because the entire mountain was shrouded in wet, gray clouds.

Coming home on Sunday was another matter altogether. The autumn light was bright and clear with that color shift toward golden that occurs in the Fall here because of the lower angle of the sun. The drive through the back roads of Washington County over Chehalem mountain was an exquisite patchwork of alpaca farms, nurseries kaleidoscopic in their color changes, vineyards, horse farms, and open countryside. At one point, shortly before you hit the winding part descending into Newberg, you come upon a wide, high panorama across the entire Tualatin river valley toward the West Hills of Portland. It was breathtaking.

Between the tiny, picturesque town of Amity and Monmouth, home of Western Oregon State University, there are many vineyards, but one rose above the others. Surrounded by vines that had already passed their prime and hung in tatters of yellow, one patch was waving flags of bright red, vermillion, and burgundy, as if in defiance of the cold wet winter to come. Firesteed is the name of the winery, and these vines personified the visual image of the name—like brilliant flames dancing in the sunlight. Clumps of dark grapes, unpicked for whatever reason, dangled below the brilliance, offering themselves to the birds as a season delicacy.

I arrived back in Corvallis intoxicated with the spectacular beauty of the day. The nearly two hours it took to make the drive seemed like minutes. I nearly wished it would never end.