Fall in Northeast Alabama by John Dersham

Pretty soon our good friend October will arrive. Just like every year she will bring her magical weather wand and a full palette of gorgeous shades of yellow, orange, red, crimson and plum. She will whisk away the heat and humidity of summer and bring us bright blue skies and clear air so we can see forever across a canvas of mountains, hills and valleys all in fall splendor. We love our area in the fall. We brag about our beauty and our great fall colors and we should because it is not just us locals that say this about us, it is our visitors too. Every fall people from all over the Deep South migrate north to see our fall foliage. Many of our fall visitors live in Birmingham and further south in Alabama, they live along the Gulf Coast or coastal plains in Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana and Florida. We represent the closest area for them to travel that has fall colors equal to anywhere further north of us. Our cooler temperatures and hardwood forests are the reason. The coast and coastal plains don’t have as defined of seasonal changes and they don’t have the trees like the Maples, Dogwoods, Black Gums, Sweet Gums, White, Red and Scarlet Oaks that give us the rich diverse color palette we see here in Northeast Alabama. For the same reasons we don’t see as many visitors from areas north of us especially if they live in the mountains. They already have the same features where they live. We are fortunate to be located where most everyone living more than 50 miles south of us would find our area to be distinctly more scenic in the fall than where they live. Fall is our second largest tourist time, just behind June and July.

We have a lot for visitors to do here in the fall, in addition to the scenic value and usually great weather we have festivals, like Fort Payne Boom Days, the VFW DeKalb County Fair, Mentone Colorfest, Collinsville Turkey Trot, Rendezvous at the Rim and Canyon Fest at the JSU Canyon Center and Little River Canyon N.P. and lots of local events with an outdoor setting. It is a great time for those of us that live here to get out for a daycation in one of the prettiest, friendliest places you’ll ever find.

For more information about upcoming fall events in DeKalb County visit our website at www.NorthAlabamaFestivals.com or call us at 256-845-3957.