No one likes for summer to end. When heather gives way to goldenrod, we know - achoo, achoo - that summer is in its twilight. Days are getting just a sliver shorter. The sun sleeps in a little later and turns in a little earlier.

And five days a week the cool morning fog parts to reveal that most bittersweet of sights: The school bus.

And when that yellow harbinger of sweaters and corduroy rumbles down the lane, can a full-on autumn be far behind?

No, really, I'm asking. I've never lived in a place with honest-to-goodness seasons before. So I've been asking around.

As I have waxed romantic over the arrival of crisp fall weather and all that comes with it, more than one person who grew up in northern climes has scoffed at autumn.

"It just reminds me that winter is around the corner," said one person.

"Don't get used to it. Autumn is about 10 minutes long here."

They say that as though the quantity and quality enjoy a direct correlation.

Summer's last gasp and sigh may last only an afternoon. But what an afternoon.

It is an afternoon, above all things, not to be missed.

How will you spend it?

You could spend it in the garden with your daughter searching the vines for yellow squash and baby pumpkins. You can bring sweaters in case it gets too cool.

You can take the drive that brings you to that one specific crest and curve - the one that always catches your breath and makes you feel so blinking lucky to call this place home.

Or you and your husband or wife can pack your overnight bags and leave behind the late-season tourists (and your children) in your own town in order to become tourists yourselves in someone else's city. You can check into what once must have been - as the brochure proclaims - a "grande" resort hotel a century ago, but now carries the distinct ambiance of Miss Havisham's parlor and the distinct aroma of an antique warehouse.

The walls are red, the palms are dusty and the halls are lined with settees, armoires and the kind of nameless framed family photos that always end up in secondhand stores with a $30 price tag. You can smile at each other and decide that - oh, yes - this is perfect.

You can do the things that vacationers and grown-ups do.

Buy clothes. Visit museums. Sleep late. Scan the lengthy list of local restaurants (Thai, Indian, Mexican, Italian ... ) wondering just how many meals you can shoehorn into two days if you really, really try. "Let's see - there's breakfast, and then maybe an early lunch, then a late lunch, then supper, then drinks and appetizers, then a late-night snack ..." That's 12 whole restaurants, and we haven't even accounted for stops to have coffee. You can eat breakfast next to a table of French Canadian motorcycle enthusiasts who are eating pancakes and wearing leather chaps. You can eat a lunch of crepes and hard cider, and tell the Food Pyramid and Dr. Atkins to mind their own beeswax.

You can eat California rolls and red vegetable curry for supper and have a chocolate martini for dessert because the hotel is within walking distance and you don't have to see straight enough to read anyone a bedtime story.

You can forget your camera and document your little getaway with the camera housed inside your cell phone. You can look at your watch and think about your son's soccer game, which is starting about now. You can stop into a toy store and buy your daughter a pink harmonica (who knew?) and a few gifts to put under the Christmas tree, because she would just love this - oh, and this. And this, too. You can think about how nice it will be to get back home, hunt for squash, watch soccer games and read bedtime stories with proper, motherly sobriety.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is a freelance writer who might just go into business photographing weddings with her phone. She can be reached at VillageWordsmith@hughes.net.