Spent the day on Amtrak – a 4 hour ride in each direction up state to visit my new grandniece, Lily, for 2 ½ hours. A little nuts, but she’s 4 weeks old today and I hadn’t met her yet, for Pete’s sake. And the ride along the Hudson, which we used to do every summer weekend all the years Rancho Obsesso was up the river, is flat-out gorgeous. On around Croton I started to see the sumac turning red – it’s always the first to go, and the red it gives you is truly scarlet – and then above Hudson, orange maples and yellow oaks. Just a few, right now, sprinkled through the green; but although I’ve been told it won’t be much of a leaf year because of all the rain in June (weren’t we told last year wasn’t much of a leaf year because of the drought?), my prediction is for some stunning color next time I go up to see little Lily. The day was rainy, and rain on the river’s always beautiful. The colors were particularly sharp: the river black and silver, with bright green lakeweed, dark, slick grass in riverside parks and white sailboats moored by gray docks. (I love the way boats all point in the same direction!) Then on the way back, the late-day sun cut through the thick clouds on the west side of the river (the train travels on the east), first blazing silver, then fading to pink. So I sat by the window sipping my tea and the trip was not at all a hardship. And of course little Lily was more beautiful than all the rest of it combined.