Last week I had an appointment in the western suburbs and I took the opportunity to drive by Morton Arboretum. For those of you who aren’t Chicagoans the Arboretum is a private trust, established by Joy Morton on the grounds of the old Morton estate (Morton Salt). His dad, J. Sterling Morton, was a great fancier and collector of trees and was instrumental in the establishment of Arbor Day.
A quick look around suggested to me that this weekend would be an excellent time to look at some fall color. Despite several days of rain between my reconnoitering visit and our actual visit, the fall colors in the Arboretum were still magnificent. I neglected to bring my camera and I took these lousy pictures on my cell phone. They still give you some idea of how dramatic and vibrant the colors were. I can barely describe to you the experience of slowly driving the narrow lane through the maple groves on the east side of the Arboretum, gasping at the wall of yellow, orange, and red that encircled us and arched above us.
The tree above must be one of the most photographed trees in the world, of course behind the Great Sequoias. Here’s another picture:
I suspect the color will still be glorious for another week or two. Well worth a visit (adult admission is $11).
Still pretty good pictures considering. I thought at first you had dusted off some more of your dad’s pictures.
We took our leaf-peeping trip along the road between New Glarus and Baraboo, Wisconsin this year. I think the wet weather has made the leaves exceptional this year. I want to go back to Devil’s Lake again some October when it’s not snowing ?!?
Great place isn’t it? Too bad we had those couple days of rain and wind that took down so many leaves.
Actually, it wasn’t bad there. As you can see from the pictures, there weren’t a lot of leaves on the ground. And in the maple groves the closely-clustered trees protected each other better than our widely separated street maples do.