How about a fall fun list?

What I'm doing to celebrate autumn this year

September is a month of transitions. Few leaves are truly changed yet — mostly just the vines, and some trees around the edges — but the light is shifting, and the next six weeks will become increasingly beautiful around here. Then it will be dark and gloomy for several months, but hey. I may as well enjoy the season in the meantime!

For many years, I’ve made a fall fun list as a way to make sure I take advantage of peak leaf season. I want to feel, come winter, that I’ve truly enjoyed nature’s most spectacular show. Here are some things I hope to do this year.

Go to Portland, Maine, and run along the water. By the time this list runs I should have done this but it is on the list nonetheless. I have a trip planned, and Maine is far north enough that there often is a bit of color in September. It is always crisp and pretty. The goal is to get up early some morning and take in the sights of the harbor.

Go to upstate NY in mid-October (and Boston in late October). I’m planning to visit my little brother in upstate NY during peak leaf time (something I did in 2021 for his wedding, and then in 2022 as well). I’m very excited about seeing the landscape! And then I will go to parents’ weekend at Northeastern is in late October, so I’ll be up north for that as well (hopefully the leaves aren’t done in Massachusetts by then! Maybe any Boston residents reading this can let me know?).

Go to a beer garden. Maybe I’ll even order some sort of Oktoberfest drink. I tend not to love fall beer flavors, but if the season calls for it, I’m in. I have designs to go to Germany for fall beer gardens some year.

Visit Chanticleer. This botanical garden is about 20 minutes from my house and it is truly gorgeous in fall. I’ve become partial to fall flowers over the years, partly because it’s such a fabulous contrast to see purple, blue, and pink flowers against yellow and red leaves. Spring flowers only get a backdrop of green! I can do this trip as a long lunch break, so I want to do this at least once. Probably twice.

Bike the boardwalk on the Jersey shore. I have never done this. We don’t bring bikes with us when we go to the beach in the summer, and during the summer, boardwalk bike riding is restricted (you have to be off the boardwalk by 9 a.m., which makes sense because of the crowds). But the rules go away around September 15, so I want to put my bike in my trunk, drive out there, and spend a few hours taking in the seaside fall landscape.