and so winter begins...

I live in a windy town. A few years ago we got gusts that hit 62mph. That's really windy when you're just trying to walk across the parking lot to your car. There were tumbleweeds the size of Volkswagens rolling down the streets. Crazy.

Yesterday wasn't that bad but late in the afternoon, a wind sprang up that set all the piles of leaves to dancing along the sidewalk, swirling them up into leafy tornadoes now and then. A storm was blowing in and the cloud formations were gorgeous. Here are some shots from around 5pm yesterday. Notice the lean angle on the (blurry) trees shot from my car window while driving. Every tree in town has a permanent eastward lean like that, plus the wind was blowing the tops over even more.