Today was our Fall Picnic for work. It was a dreary, rainy, cold day. Strange choice of date for a picnic if you ask me.

The a secondary purpose of the picnic is to have a Mini-Walk for Help the Homeless. Since more bodies means raising more money, I asked my father to accompany me to the picnic.

To be honest, he was also there to be a bit of a buffer for me. In any case, he enjoyed eating the hamburgers and gazing upon the fall foliage.

I spend most of the afternoon in the car between driving from work to his house, over to the park, back to his house, and on to mine. Each of these trips averaged 45 minutes. By the time we left the park, I was quite stiff and in pain. Still, the handiwork of God's craftsmanship on display all around me gave me pause and helped to pass the time spent between stops.

While we were together, Dad didn't seem to mind that I stopped the car several times to snap photos or to just admire the colors around me. It is funny, isn't it, that death can be so utterly beautiful?

The photo of the road into the park is one Dad suggested that I snap. He thought that the view was quite striking. For myself, I was a bit captivated by this gnarly tree I spotted. It seemed such a strange contrast to the beautiful trees all around it.

A misfit like me.