"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

No, it’s not rural New England. And no, it’s not Santa Fe, or Taos. This beautiful stand of Big Tooth Maples greets you at Fourth of July Campground and throughout the 4.8 mile, 1100 foot climb in the Manzano Mountains, east and just a little south of Albuquerque. On this particular hike, which includes Cerro Blanco Loop, autumn produces a sea of red, orange, and yellow.

In The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and the Beautiful, Sonny, the young Indian who owns and manages the hotel, advises one of his guests who is appalled by what she has discovered once she gets to Jaipur: “In India, we have a saying—everything will be all right in the end,” he explains. “So if it is not all right, it is not yet the end.”

Though morning speaks of fall, the rose is still in town...

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)