The First Fires

There is a window in the American travel year that the impatient miss entirely, the weeks between the last warm weekend and the first serious snow, when the inns light their fires for the season and the hills go quiet in a way that July never permits. People who have found this interval tend not to advertise it, which is precisely what makes them the right people to ask. The rooms are available, the roads are clear, the kitchen is still running on the harvest, and the proprietor has time to remember your name. It does not last long, which is part of its instruction.