I grew up in the Midwest, and if there’s one thing I really miss, it’s the long, drawn-out falls of years past. Here in Colorado, autumn is a blip, a frantic shoulder season that usually includes one nightmarish day stuck in I-70 traffic with my kids, all of us racing to Kenosha Pass, hoping to arrive before the last aspen leaves drop. Back home, the harvest period is expansive.
Authoritative, even. Fall stretches itself out like a lazy cat that won’t budge, and there’s never any rush to peep the silver and sugar maples, native bur oaks, ash, giant sycamores, American elms and Eastern redbuds, with their bifurcated trunks and leaves as yellow as sunbeams. Trees are everywhere in the Midwest, so it’s no wonder , an aerial technology company, recently ranked one of Denver’s closest capital cities, Topeka, Kan.
, as one of the top “leafiest” capitals in the U.S. Tree canopy shades more than 30% of The Golden City, making it a forest metropolitan, according to Bob Ross of the Greater Topeka Partnership.
Early settlers gave Topeka its nickname upon observing its sunlit rolling hills and autumn elms. Mother Nature doesn’t feel rushed in Kansas: Glimmering leaves can glow into Thanksgiving, in a fierce rainbow of red, deep orange, gold, lingering green, purple and rich brown. Bright days and cool nights seem to bring out the best colors, and according to a 2024 fall foliage prediction map created by Smoky Mountains National Park, , the northern half of Kansas will b.