Just as the autumn colors are spreading and the first winter storm is pushing out of the Rockies, we'll be retreating to summer for the next week. Obliged to check on our Longboat condo, we will enter the world of perpetual balminess (at least relative to our dramatic seasons in Missouri).
We'll leave the world of deciduous forests, rock bluffs, cornfields and great rivers and enter the kingdom of mangroves, ocean surf, bays and sand. Walnuts and oaks will give way to pines and palms. Hawks will become ospreys and laughing gulls will stand in for the raucous jays. Brown pelicans will glide overhead, roseate spoonbills will glow from the shallows and the shorebirds that visited our wetlands over the past few months will be racing along the beach.
And, of course, the cool, autumn air will be supplanted by the heat and humidity of South Florida. It will be a week of summer in the midst of autumn; somehow I'll survive.
