The nights grow colder and longer, but the daytime remains warm. This is the secret recipe for some autumn magic. When the temperatures drop below the dew point, the air must let go of some of its water vapor, and so it rises: the fog.
Mornings in the city, mist rises from the ground everywhere. Out from the wet heaps of mulch, freshly mounded for winter; out from the grasses that glow golden in the autumn sunlight; out from the sewers that steam and belch up the river that runs beneath the streets.
And at nighttime in the country, down in Patterson, Missouri, where Big Creek runs through Sam A. Baker State Park, on these first cold nights of the year there’s a scene that brings chills to your skin. The fog swirls over the dark water and climbs upward, thick and slow, glowing white in the light of the bright moon. Even when the moon is full, you can’t see five feet ahead, and a flashlight can’t cut through the fog either. There, you may stand in silence. Your breath appears in the air for the first time this season as you listen to the river and stare at the dark silhouettes of the trees, still against the glowing mist.
All That Moves 