Fall Foliage in Michigan and Oregon

After ten months since taking the trip of a lifetime, I'm finally caught up editing pictures from last year and this year. These photos were taken in the last two weekends of October 2022.

Part 1: Detroit, Michigan:

Those who know me know how much I love to take pictures of two main things: Europe and the fall foliage. I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the fall foliage in Europe in and around Paris, but unfortunately, the colors are not as nice as the North American colors. I was able to confirm what some Spanish friends had told me: in Europe, we have mainly yellow and brown leaves, but no red ones. (There are some exceptions. There are some sweetgums in the Champs-Élysées. These were likely brought from the eastern US. Other cities and towns may have some North American trees as well).  I have also been lucky to have seen isolated areas of bigtooth maples in New Mexico and Texas, but I have always wanted to see those famous New England or Michigan fall colors that were shown on The Weather Channel and Webshots. After seeing some of the real sugar maples at their peak rightoutside Minneapolis in October 2021, I decided to keep exploring this beautiful Eastern North American Forest along with some European art in October 2022:

Most big metro areas in the US have at least one major art museum. Most of these museums also happen to have European Art. Detroit is a city that has some beautiful European style art in its main museum and in some of its churches, as well as some awesome fall colors. If you plan ahead of time, you can see it all in one weekend. Unlike the previous year, where maples were at their peak color right outside the city while having mostly green leaves in the city, this time the trees were at their peak in the city while right outside the city you could see that most of the colors were gone. The heat island effect probably delays the peak colors inside the cities.

The Detroit Institute of Art has a huge collection of European and American Paintings. It also has a famous mural that was painted by Diego Rivera:

There’s a couple of beautiful churches, and art deco buildings:

The most beautiful of these churches and buildings is perhaps “The Sweetest Heart of Mary Catholic Church,” which was made by Polish immigrants:

Elmwood Cemetery may have its trees looking like this around October 21^st:

Belle Isle is an island in the middle of the Detroit River:

As remarkable as it seems, the Canadian border is located south of Detroit. This is the city of Windsor, Canada as seen from Belle Isle in Detroit:

The nicest part of the Henry Ford Museum was the fall foliage on the trees outside:

Part 2, Portland, Oregon:

Portland is just south of the “Evergreen State,” but I was hoping to see its art museum, a mansion, as well as the Chinese and Japanese gardens, along with some fall foliage. I was not that lucky with the timing of the fall colors on this last weekend of October (a week after the trip in Detroit), it was also cloudy. I should’ve probably waited another week to see better colors, but it was still worth visiting my 35^th US state for the weekend:

Traveling so frequently is not financially sustainable in the long run. While the future is uncertain, I am hopeful for more opportunities like this. While this blog is personal, I hope that any random readers get ideas for their future trips!