ALT Elk River North Carolina autumn reflections with golden fall colors, Blue Ridge Mountains, Beech Mountain, Elk River Falls. From the Fine Art Gallery of Shelia Hunt.

ALT The historic Cottonwood Creek railroad trestle spans above Lake Britton in Shasta County, California, on an autumn morning. The steel and timber structure rises above the calm lake surface, its weathered ironwork framed by shoreline trees in full fall color. Warm morning light breaks over the eastern ridge and catches the turning foliage along the water's edge — yellows, oranges, and golds reflected in the still lake below. The adjacent campground is empty and the scene is quiet. The rails are gone now, the trestle a relic, recognizable to anyone who watched a group of twelve-year-olds run across it in 1986 and has carried that image ever since.