And, no, I'm not talking about the autumn leaves.

In Knightdale, folks turned out to get their first peek at the new Community Park. The town declared Saturday to be Arbor Day and some town officials got together and planted a tree.

But for most folks, the most interesting part of the event was riding around the 70-plus acre park property on a tractor-pulled trailer to see the park. It is an oasis of green in an otherwise suburbanized area.

Once you got out of your car in the parking area off First Avenue and walked the short distance to where the open house was based, all the noise of city life went away (except for the generators running the concession trailer.)

Virtually nothing has been done to the property so far. A pile of landscaping buckets were hiding just inside the tree line in front of my parking space. The obvious exception to the no-change rule was the fact that someone cut some grass to create a parking area. And much of the park will remain in its natural state once it is opened to the public.

Mayor Russell Killen invoked one of his campaign themes in explaining why the park was important. He called it part of building a better Knightdale. He eschewed the obvious comparisons to Cary that face any fast-growing town. That seems to be the popular thing for people to say. They don't want to be like Cary.

Oftentimes that's a reference to that city's stringent rules on the appearance of new development.

But, the truth is, Cary's a pretty little city. I suspect most mayors would love to have the tax base and the amenities a city such as Cary has to offer.

Nonetheless, people were anxious to see the new space and, as I arrived about 11 a.m. Saturday, others were streaming into the parking lot all around me.

Young parents with children, older folks intent on learning about the changes and candidates all pulled in to see what's happening at the park.

Laughter and smiles were the emotional clothing of the day and town parks and rec employees along with their counterparts in the planning department were busy flitting from one booth to another, quickly chatting with people and making sure everyone was having good time.

From Knightdale, I made the quick trip to downtown Wendell, where day 2 of the Harvest Festival was in full swing. I was impressed with the growth in the number of vendors at this year's event. Tents lined both sides of the street on Third and Cypress streets and people walked slowly through the crowds making their way from one vendor to the next. The lawn at the J. Ashley Wall Towne Square was more crowded with vendors this year than I've ever seen, a sign that business folks see an opportunity to make a dollar or two in Wendell.

Maybe one day that feeling will translate into more businesses that open up year-round.

I hung around the Harvest Festival for a while Saturday afternoon before rushing to the office to process some of the pictures photographer Steven Worthy had taken at the festival.

After another engagement Saturday night, I raced back to the town square to hang out with my wife during the last hour of the concert by the Band of Oz.

The crowd was beginning to thin, but it was still too thick for us to see the stage from our lawn chair seats behind the bleachers.

The band struck into some of its biggest hits and when the opening strains of Kool & the Gang's ageless hit "Celebration" filled the air, I stood up, saw the stage filling with children and made Becky check it out.

There were smiles everywhere - from the children on stage, to the folks in the dance area to the band members who made themselves small to put the children center stage.

Smiles, it seems, were the order of the day Saturday - all over eastern Wake County.