Meet Traveler, a pure bred, female, tri-color Cocker Spaniel. She waits not so patiently on my wife's knee for something to happen, anything - This is her usual position this time of the evening. Traveler looks especially melancoly, so I thought it appropriate to share her with you.

Last night's New Years Eve the indigenous population let go with the fireworks. But out here in Hawaii, it isn't like you can go across the border to get any M80's or even pop bottle rockets. We just have thousands of miles of the Pacific. These poor folks are stuck with those one inch long little snappers. You've heard them, kinda like pumped up popcorn snapping in the microwave. Well, our next door neighbor had a million of them all in a pile on the pavement of the parking lot. I thought it reasonable that by its end there would be a puddle of bubbling tar to stare at for the rest of the evening.

Well, back to Traveler. She didn't sleep normally last night, having just seen that afternoon a History Channel rendition of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. She wants to go back to the tornado belt on the mainland. Stopped her from placing herself on eBay.

A view out our front door, across the street.

Came home from shopping for our Christmas eve meal to discover this rainbow appearing forward of the trees on the left with a hint of a double appearing top left. Late afternoon sun as it nearly drops behind the mountain behind us frequently catches the falling rain. The gray background is a bank of clouds over the ocean.

Check out the tall grass and catch a glimpse of an entire car being eaten up by the mountain.

A parent took their pickup to the top of Mauna Kea, here on the Big Island in order to bring a load of snow down to our school, 13,000 ft below. Some of our elementary children had never been able to pick up snow in their hands before. They were giddy with laughter.

So, as you become more and more bothered by this winter's snows, please remember the gift of snow.

See if you can spot the radio telescopes on the horizon in the middle pic.

The color you get in fall can be more brilliant to admire than our regular day in Paradise, as fleeting as autumn may be for you.

Can you imagine trees that only lose leaves because it grows and new leaves force them off? It's a kind of forever summer. Not to suggest we have something much of the southern US doesn't have but after a year the memory of autumn becomes richer, not dimmer to me.

The different joys of autumn contain the simple joys worth cherishing. There were the lazy Saturdays when in the 60s my lady and I walked the sidewalks and parks of Greeley Colorado, pushing the leaves while stepping, courting days before our years of marrainge since. Mountain Colorado Aspen, Colorado plains cottonwoods, the deep and flourishing forests of the Adirondacks and Catskills of upstate New York.

Hawaii is the most southern state in the United States. Fall is most distant here than anywhere. And this is my second time missing it. So there you have it. Something we don't have in Paradise.

Any unique thoughts about autumn for you?