Letchworth State Park August 2015

/

We first visited Letchworth State Park (New York) in the spring of 2014 (posted about it here). It was a cook, wet day then. It was time for a return trip. This time we got a hotel in Mt. Morris which is near the northern entrance to the park. We drove all the way through the park to the upper falls and worked our way back.

The upper falls has a high railroad trestle overhead. The force of the water causes mist to rise from the base of the falls and the cliff walls to support tiny green plants.

The middle falls also creates lots of mist - enough to dampen the walkways to the side of the falls. The Inn is located near the middle falls.

The lower falls is narrower and there is a path to a footbridge over the river below it. There are 127 steps (or more the way we made our way down) to get to the bridge.

I’ve picked more pictures of our morning at Letchworth State Park for the slideshow below. I’ve kept them in chronological order.

  • The mists over the river valley when we first drove into the park (1)
  • The flowers, one red leaf on the dogwood, and hickory nuts at the visitor center (2-4)
  • More views around the upper falls (included a spider with its shadow that was scurrying across a step) (5-8)
  • Some birds from the walk I made between the upper and middle falls: blue jay and flicker in a picnic area, crows on the rocks at the top of the middle falls (9-10)
  • Vegetation along the paths around the middle falls; my favorite is the macro of the underside of the morning glory (11-14)
  • Plants and views from the hike down to the lower falls (15-19)

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - August 2015

/

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are my top 10 for August 2015.

Eggplant balls - I finally found a recipe made with eggplant that I really like. The balls are good as appetizers or with spaghetti sauce (i.e. like meat balls) or cut in quarters and used in a stir fry. The recipe I started with is here; I substituted flaxseed meal and ground oatmeal for the bread crumbs.

Great cantaloupe and watermelon from the CSA this year - I always associate the best cantaloupe and watermelon with August….and this year was true to my memories. The watermelons were big, heavy things and very sweet; not the seedless and less flavorful varieties that seem the most popular in many grocery stores.

A visit from my daughter - My daughter had an opportunity to travel to our area for work….and she stayed on for a visit over the weekend. Wonderful serendipity.

New tablet (provided under warranty) - I got a notice about a month ago that my tablet was being recalled and that vendor would provide a replacement. The process worked! My new tablet arrived in the mail and was configured the way I wanted very quickly. I was braced for a glitch that never occurred.

Windows 10 - I was running Windows 7 and decided to upgrade to Windows 10 to be on a more current operating system. Again I anticipated a glitch of some kind. There was a minor one that cost me a few hours but otherwise it was easier. Most of the configuration I had previous was maintained during the install….that’s the part I celebrated.

Anticipating a road trip - I always enjoy the time just before a road trip....finding information for along our route, packing….celebrating that we are getting away for a little while.

Letchworth State Park - We had been to the park in New York once before during a spring time and wanted to go when it was warmer. Arriving first thing in the morning meant that we didn’t have lots of people in our photographs.

Taughannock State Park - Initially we had not planned to visit the park but I’m glad we had the time. We only went to the overlook of the falls but it brought back lots of memories of visits there with my daughter when she lived in the area several years ago.

Stony Brook State Park - This was a new park for use and was initially a disappointment because we were there on a hot afternoon and there were huge numbers of people. We came back on our way home and had the park to ourselves…and that the day I celebrated this particular park.

Nature Photography with summer campers - Celebrating a volunteer gig that was a joy - for me and the elementary are summer campers....sharing the wonder of nature.