A touch of autumn colour

Today, 3 October 2013, I decided I would do the long drive NW of Calgary (total drive was about 280 kms), hoping I might just see an owl of some kind, but also wanting to find some beautiful fall colours. The weather forecast was for a mix of sun and cloud, which sounded good. However, it was thick, grey cloud for the whole journey out there, and I even had a few minutes of very light, very fine snow at my furthest point. My main sightings were cows and horses, though I did see a couple of dead Coyotes on the road, and a Hawk that flew before I came within shooting distance. Nothing to be seen, just nothing - where is everything? Not as much fall colour as I had expected, either, and I'm not sure if I was too early or too late (suspect the latter). Of course, without the sun, fall colours seem dull and lifeless, so maybe that was part of it. On my way home, I drove a few backroads SW of the city and found this small splash of colour. As you can see, by the time I was almost home, the sun managed to squeeze through the clouds - better late than never. This is a zoomed in shot, so the Rocky Mountains look closer than they really are. Once I was within city limits, I drove a couple of the gravel backroads and experienced about a minute of tiny hail. I don't know if it rained in the city yesterday, but these two roads were very wet and muddy and unpleasant to drive on. There were a couple of large vehicles at the side of the road, so maybe they were preparing the road in order to put down new gravel?