Fall is without a doubt my favorite season of the year. Though the cool fall weather is a little later arriving here than in other places I’ve lived, the result is the same. I get this tremendous urge to go out into the wilderness and just enjoy the cool weather and feel the cold wind blowing on my face.

I’ve had that urge lately and would like to disappear a few days to enjoy the season, but with events to cover and a newspaper to get out, I’ve resisted. Yet, I may have to take at least a day to just get out somewhere and enjoy the cool weather and maybe take some photos and see some places I haven’t seen.

When I lived in northern Kansas, deer season often gave me that opportunity to just get away and spendtime alone in the hills. I liked to find a good spot where I could sit with my back up against a tree and listen and watch not just the deer but all the wildlife. Perhaps I’ll have to find a place to hunt and give that a try here, though I admit that I find hunting with a camera even more challenging. And, when hunting with a camera, there are no closed seasons, no bag limits and no game animals to clean when a fellow goes home and is tired.

In the early fall when I was truck driving, I enjoyed going to places like Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana. Even though it might still have beenwarm back at my home, the trips there gave me that opportunity to feel the cold wind blowing through my beard and maybe even to experience the first snow flakes of the season.

Of course, it was good to head back south again before winter really set in. I guess it was a little like the ships up in the north seas which try to make it through in open water one last time before the ice freezes and they get stuck there for the winter.

Though I still enjoyed being out during the late fall and early winter months when I lived in northern Minnesota, truck driving in the cold country once winterset in wasn’t fun. I remember sleeping in coveralls, ski cap and a big sleeping bag in the cab of my old truck and still being cold. Even burning fuel with a 50 percent Number One blend, things still gelled. Though I put alcohol in my air lines and kept tanks drained of moisture, lines still found ways to freeze. Blowing snow managed to make it through vents and windows. Folding up tarps at 20 below was just about an impossibility, and one always had to be careful not to get frostbite when working outside in the frigid cold. When I pulled refrigerated trailers, instead of cooling, I had to heat my trailer in the winter months to keeppotatoes and other produce from freezing.

In spite of having to deal with the extreme cold of winter, I’ve always enjoyed the coming of the cold weather and can’t resist spending a little time out in it.

Of course, once the cold sets in and is around for a while, I’m ready for it to go away again and for the warm air of spring and summer to return. And it seems, the older I get, the more anxious I am for the cold of winter to pass.

Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be reached by e-mail at rmoll @ nwaonline .com.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 12/01/2010