Suddenly Winter

It's been pretty sweltering recently, until a big storm midweek cooled things off, and now we have arrived at several Seasonal Firsts: last night we lit our first fire since the Spring (with some trepidation: the company we bought the stove from and who have cleaned the chimney at least once a year ever since have gone out of business - the old man, Al Sorge, retired, and his (very nice) sons have obviously decided not to continue the family business, so we have to find new chimney sweeps); this morning I had my first oatmeal, and, the kicker, this morning the garage door refused to close, which only happens when the temperature drops below a certain point for an extended period.  The good thing about this is that it kills off the bloody mosquitoes, so Frederick and I went off to Grand Blanc Commons, which I've been avoiding for a while because it gets so buggy.  First thing we noticed was new map signs, so that we would know where we were:

Nonetheless, we managed to get thoroughly lost (probably because I was emboldened to go a new way, thinking the signs would be there to bail us out):

Help!  (At least I got to wear my birthday coat for the first time.)