Although there is a playful kid-like way to my story-telling in places, this book is primarily for free-thinking adults and young adults. I hope you will find the photography alluring and the captions uplifting -- especially if you're going through some life struggle at this very moment. Autumn colors can be stunning in the mountains of North Carolina and elsewhere, arriving as an annual event for our precious planet. The season can be a joy and a learning experience for anyone with all their senses plugged in. For me, I am also entering the one-time Fall of my life as a human, so my road trip with a care-free canine named Darwin was a celebration of internal and external seasons.

Whether you find strength through faith in a supreme being or -- like me -- through the science of evolution and natural selection, life is absolutely beautiful. I know it's temporary, at least as it relates to me as a human host, a carrier of smaller and smaller organisms. I am not immortal. I never believed I was. There will come a time of darkness for “me”, but I am not afraid. There is an energy I devour and that devours me. It soars through my existence like Darwin and the changing leaves. I embrace that eternal energy and strive to understand it. Sometimes it is cruel and indifferent to my wishes, but it is exciting to be alive and aware of it just the same. -- Mark Renz