Summer’s Over

Well, not according to the calendar. But what does it know? Ask the vendors at the Jersey shore. Ask the empty beaches up and down the east coast. Ask any child who’s sitting in a classroom today instead of – well, remembering how I used to feel by the end of August, instead of dragging around complaining that there was nothing to do.

Anyway, for practical purposes, we’re moving into fall now; in a few weeks, it’s going to be too chilly for summer clothes. (And the first thing I saw when I looked out a window this morning was a leaf spiraling to the ground.) So I thought I’d take a day to look back at the very middle of summer. July 15; right in the middle of the long green hot days. We were, very appropriately, on vacation then, out in Montana at Glacier Park.

It definitely looked like summer.

Then we took a shuttle bus up – and up and up – to Logan Pass, the high point of the park. At that point, the road over Logan Pass had only been open for two weeks. (For all I know, it’s snowed closed for the winter by now. It certainly won’t be open more than another month.)

There were little wildflowers everywhere

and ground squirrels

and long stretches of scenery

and tiny specks of creatures in the distance.

Oh. Hikers, on their way to a lake on the far side of that spur of mountain.

Not everyone had the least intention of heading back down to where it was warm and green, though. These mountain goats like it where they are.