Editor's note: This article first appeared in Sun Life Magazine, a Daily Independent publication.
After months of planning our lives around triple-digit temperatures, hunting for shaded parking spaces, and treating the walk from the car to the grocery store as an endurance event, fall has arrived in the Valley. Maybe the thermometer hasn’t gotten the message every single afternoon yet, but mornings are cooling, evenings are becoming ours again, and the best time of year to live in the desert is beginning.
And suddenly, there are things to do. Pumpkin patches and Halloween nights return. Hiking boots come out of the closet. Baseball moves from air-conditioned Chase Field to an October evening under the lights in Peoria. Coffee shops start pouring drinks that taste suspiciously like pie, and sitting outside becomes something we choose to do rather than something we survive. For those willing to wander a little farther, even the sight of changing leaves isn’t out of reach.
