Spectral Images of Spring

Augusta, Georgia

Opening the front door can be a really pleasant experience. Today I opened up about 6:45 AM and found a sapphire blue heaven lacerated with amazing streaks of crimson, pink, and red, punctuated by rays of bright orange ascending from the horizon as the solar event horizon raced across the sky. These images are always the better when seen on travel days. I wasn’t hopping on planes today but was anticipating about four hours of enjoyable country driving at the peak of spring color here in the south.

So it was that I picked up a friend to drive to Augusta for her annual visit to the Medical College of Georgia. The morning drive through rolling South Carolina farmland in late March is beautiful. Dogwood trees in full bloom accent the banks of lavender, purple, red, and white azaleas. Several species of late blooming daffodils provide their yellow punctuation on emerald sweeps of fresh lawns. Many fence rows are illuminated by Yoshino cherry trees and the nearly ubiquitous Bradford pear trees are just finishing their blooming cycles and putting on canopies of newly emergent green.

Perhaps one of the most visual of all sporting events is the Master’s golf tournament in Augusta. I am willing to bet a lot of people vie for tickets to the Masters just for an opportunity to wander around in one of the most perfectly manicured landscapes in the world for four days as much as they do to watch people launch little white balls into the cerulean skies of Augusta. Today everyone in Augusta is preparing the town for its mass influx of Truflite pilgrims in a couple of weeks.

68 degrees at the end of March with a china blue sky and everything in full bloom certainly does give a colorful reminder of how grand life really can be even if it includes visits to the neurosciences center of a university medical campus. Every day that one is above ground and able to smell the flowers is a good one. In all things, give thanks, especially for springtime in the South.