As much as I love orange tones during Autumn, I thought we could mix orange with dark brown and black found in lava—whether lava rocks, flowing lava, or glowing coals within a fire.
Why have I chosen lava? No idea, but apparently the color of flowing lava depends on its temperature. It starts out bright orange, then as it cools, the color changes to bright red, then to dark red, and then to various dark brown tones. Solid lava is black.
Actual Lava Rock

“Black is always elegant. It is the most complete color in the whole world, made of all the colors in the palette.” – Ricardo Tisci
This is an example of solid lava that has eroded into black sand, seen along many beaches on the Big Island of Hawaii.

You don’t need actual pictures of lava for this color challenge, just a combination of brown, black, dark red and orange, or simply choose one of these colors!
“Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” — Dr. Seuss
Lava in the Swiss Alps?
Unlikely, but I got your attention, didn’t I? We spent the last three days of our trip in Basel, Switzerland. On our free day, we took the train into the Swiss Alps, specifically, the alpine town of Grindelwald.
The famous mountain village of Grindelwald is embedded in a unique Alpine landscape at the foot of the Mt. Eiger north face.

The Swiss Chalet Style is famous in Switzerland’s alpine and rural regions. These homes use heavy timber construction, stone foundations, and wide, steeply pitched gabled roofs designed to handle heavy snow loads on uneven slopes.
Visiting Europe was a bucket list item for me and spending a day in the Swiss Alps was truly the foam on the cappuccino!
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
Each day while participating in shore excursions on our cruise, we made a point of eating lunch with a view and sipping a cappuccino. We sat at a small restaurant in Grindelwald with this ephemeral view of the Alps. I will keep these memories close to my heart.

“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” — Winnie the Pooh
Autumn Colors
I love the ephemeral beauty of autumn leaves. Here today, gone tomorrow it seems. A bit of the lava colors in these images.


Toward the last part of our trip to Europe, we strolled past this La Chouette Famille shop, where you can make your own owls. The shop was closed but I loved the door and decor.

I also couldn’t resist buying this small Cuckoo Clock from the Black Forest area of Germany.

Inspiring Photo Challenges This Week
This week, I’m double dipping (x6) for these fabulous Photo challenges:
Many thanks to Hugh Roberts for hosting two weeks of Sunday Stills in my absence. I thought he wouldn’t mind if I played along with Ephemeral, hosted by Hugh
Festival of Leaves, hosted by Dawn.
Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan.
Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday, hosted by John
Lens-Artists: Memories, hosted by Tina this week.
Wednesday Quotes, hosted by Sadje and Kymber
Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders
The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is simple to join. You have all week to share and link your post. Please use your own original images, whether new or from your archives. Your original images reimagined with AI tools in post-editing are also welcome.
- Remember to title your blog post a little differently from mine.
- Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
- Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
- Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
- I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

If you are participating in the monthly color challenge this week, I look forward to seeing how you interpret this week’s theme of the colors of lava (and black)! Creativity is encouraged, so please share your own photographs (old or new), poems, original short stories, and music inspired by the theme.
Join me next week as we explore a new Animal of the Month–Creatures that are Scary.
We are back from our European vacation. I plan to spend more time sharing the details of our trip in the coming weeks. For now, I’m keeping this post short.


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