A Harvest of Words and Photographs

I walk in the park in the early morning hours and see the sun rise.

I took my camera along this day to record it's beauty,

and to reflect on the words of poets and sages.

"Even if something is left undone,

everyone must take time to sit still

and watch the leaves turn."
~ Elizabeth Lawrence

"The thinnest yellow light of November is

more warming

and exhilarating

than any wine they tell of."
~ Henry David Thoreau

 

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me,

fluttering from the autumn tree."

~ Emily Bronte

"When the trees their summer splendor

Change to raiment red and gold,

When the summer moon turns mellow,

And the nights are getting cold;

When the squirrels hide their acorns,

And the woodchucks disappear;

Then we know that it is autumn,

Loveliest season of the year."

~ Carol L. Riser

"For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.

For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad."

~ Edwin Way Teale

My shadow grows long, the sun has risen, my walk is over.

 Even in my little urban park

the beauty of autumn never fails to delight me!

"I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its tone is mellower, its colours are richer, and it is tinged with a little sorrow.

Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor the power of summer,

but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age.

It knows the limitations of life and is content."

~ Lin Yutang

I am adding this post to Susan's Outdoor Wednesday, and Jenny's Alphabe Thursday .. the letter this week is "H." Thanks to all! Please visit all these wonderful blogs and join in!

Surprises in Litchfield, CT

My husband and I had such a wonderful time driving through Litchfield County, Connecticut a week ago on a Fall leaf peeping trip that I'm finding it hard not to show all the photos I took, so the collage above is a representation of the many scenic sights that we saw along the way. Fall is such a lovely time of the year!
(All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them once, and then again when they re-open on a new page)

Very often on a trip like this we come across the most interesting and unexpected sights...a few of which I'll show in today.....

The first is Lourdes in Litchfield, a ministry of the Montfort Missionaries since 1958. Located at 50 Montfort Road in Litchfield, Connecticut, the shrine is part of the grounds of Montfort House. The 35 acres is open to the public from dawn to sunset.  The grotto replica Mary's apparition to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France and is a place meant for prayer and meditation. Outdoor services are held from May 1 to mid-October at the grotto, weather permitting.

Past the grotto is a paved walking path up a hill that leads to the Way of the Cross.

Large statues winding around the steep hillside show all the Stations of the Cross. It was inspirational to see them in such a beautiful and natural setting.

Our next surprise is that there is a wine trail in Connecticut!  Having recently visited Sonoma and Napa Valleys in California, where we visited many wineries, we knew we'd like to visit a counterpart in Connecticut and stopped at the Haight Brown Vineyard which resides on ten acres atop the historic Chestnut Hill in the town of Litchfield.

Opened in 1973 it is Connecticut's first established winery!

The grape harvest was already completed for the 2010 season, but the grapevines were still green.

We decided to go inside and share a wine tasting. Since the growing season is short and the temperatures are cooler here than in California the Haight Brown Vineyards produces many white wines such as Chardonnay, Riesling, and Covertside White. They also have selections of strawberry and apple wines, and a limited selection of red wines made from imported grapes.

We did our wine tasting with an accompaniment of cheese and chocolates which complimented the wines. It was an interesting way to try them!

Last, we saw this pretty house in Litchfield that reminded us of many houses that we saw in Quebec, Canada, as it had a metal roof. The bright red roof is so bright and cheerful, don't you agree?

I'm linking with Susan of A Southern Daydreamer for her blog's "Outdoor Wednesday" event, and Sue's "Rednesday" on her blog It's A Very Cherry World, and Cathy's "Adventure Express" on her blog A Bit of the Blarney and Jenny Matlock's blog for her "Alphabe Thursday" as this week the letter is "F" and I can't think of a better F than all these fall images! Please visit these blogs and join in all the fun!

Leaf Peeping in Connecticut

Autumn of 2010 in New York has been warm, but stormy, and it appears the fall foliage will be less than spectacular this year as many trees have already lost their leaves.  So this past weekend my husband and I decided to take a two hour drive up north to Connecticut to see if this New England state would satisfy our urge for autumn leaf peeping.

There was definitely much more autumn color, but even here many of the tress had lost their leaves from the nor'easter storm that had recently passed through.

There were trees in shades yellows and oranges, but not many were this brilliant shade of red.

Non-the-less, the scenery was beautiful!

We drove up to West Cornwall so that we could drive over their historic one lane red colored covered bridge.

Built in 1864, the West Cornwall Bridge is 172 feet long and spans the Housatonic River

After we drove over the bridge I walked back inside it to take these views from a few of the windows.

The Housatonic River as seen from a covered bridge window, facing west.

The Housatonic River, taken from a covered bridge window, facing east

In 1973 the Connecticut Department of Transportation rehabilitated the bridge by inserting a concealed steel deck to support the weight of traffic.The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. 

We sat by the river for awhile, enjoying the peaceful view.

We then walked through part of the charming town of West Cornwall.

There we saw that in this quaint toll house overlooking the Housatonic River, Ian Ingersoll makes reproductions of Shaker furniture.

A pretty residential home whose front garden's pink roses were still blooming!

Across the street, these attached houses were a pretty shade of pink!

Todd Piker's Cornwall Bridge Pottery Store, is 5000 square feet and covers two floors.  It showcases an ever-changing exhibitions of functional hand-thrown, wood-fired pottery that Piker has been crafting for over 35 years.

There was a farmers market going on in the town square with a wonderful array of fresh vegetables and...

.....a large selection of colorful gourds and squash and......

...delicious home baked goods!

We were tempted to buy that last whoopie pie on the pink dish, but instead bought a large oatmeal cookie to share, as we are trying to be diet conscious.

One of my favorite sights in the town was this colorful sculpture of a rooster standing amid the pink rose bush.  He's made from an old red Mobil Oil drum! I thought he had a lot of personality! What do you think?

I have more photos from our get away that I'll show next time, but for today I'm linking to Susan's Outdoor Wednesday, Sue's Rednesday, Cathy's Adventure Tour Express,  Sandi's Friday Favorites Linky Party, and Beverly's Pink Saturday. Please visit all the blogs to join in the fun!

Yosemite Falls, Olmsted Point, Tuolumne Meadows and the Tioga Road

This is my fourth and final post for now about our trip to Yosemite National Park in California. This is what we saw of Yosemite Falls when we visited at the end of the month of August, 2010. It was just a trickle of water and not the thunderous waterfall it is in the spring, when all the heavy snow melt occurs. Yosemite Falls is one of the tallest in North America and fifth highest in the world with a total drop of 2,425 feet.

You can watch this short video to see what the famous Yosemite Falls looks like in Spring and also to see some of the other natural attractions in the park.

A close up of the late summer falls from the park's new viewing point.

A closer zoom in of the late summer conditions of Yosemite Falls  Considering the temperature in the Yosemite Valley was in the 90's that day I was surprised to see any water flowing at all! 
One advantage to visiting the park in late summer, however, was that there were less visitors and it was very easy for us to drive throughout the park without traffic delays. About 4 million people visit Yosemite National Park in a year as it is one of the most popular parks.

Our son had visited Yosemite National Park a few years ago and told us that the views approaching the eastern entrance to the park were spectacular and not to be missed, so we decided to leave the valley and drive to higher elevations towards the east.

We passed this gnarled old wind swept sequoia tree along the way and had to stop to take it's photo. Just imagine all the severe weather conditions it has survived!

 We stopped at the beautiful Olmsted Point overlook.

Informational placard about Olmsted Point. Please click on once to enlarge, and then again when it opens on a new page for easier viewing. All photos will enlarge this way.

Olmsted Point, along the Tioga Road, looks down on Yosemite Valley from the east--and from a very different angle. You can see Clouds Rest and Half Dome in the distance.

Half Dome is one of the most prominent peaks seen from Olmsted Point when looking west.

Tenaya Lake as seen from Olmsted Point looking towards the east.

Notice Fairview Dome at the bottom right, which we will see again in an upcoming photo.

Tenaya Lake is a magnificent High Sierra lake surrounded by granite domes, lodgepole forests, and Yosemite's vast wilderness. It is the largest lake in Yosemite's front country.

Tuolumne Meadows and Yosemite's high country, traversed by the Tioga Road, offer some of the Sierra Nevada's most rugged, sublime views.  At an elevation of 8,600 feet above sea level it is the largest sub-alpine meadow in the Sierra Nevada.

It is 55 miles, approximately 90 minutes by car, from Yosemite Valley via the Tioga Road. Many miles of trails radiate from this area and it is a primary wilderness threshold for hikers.

The Tuolumne Meadows area is graced by the winding Tuolumne River and surrounded by majestic peaks and domes.

Pothole Dome is a granite dome on the West side of Toulumne Meadows that shows interaction of the last ice age. In particular, the stranded, rounded boulders from a glacier that has long since retreated, and the water-eroded "potholes" provide evidence of two ways that water can interact with granite

Here is Fairview Dome again, which is by far the largest of the many outstanding domes in the Tuolumne region.

Lembert Dome is another granite dome rock formation that soars 800 feet above Tuolumne Meadows.

Due to the high elevation and snow accumulation the Tioga Road is closed to vehicle traffic during the winter and spring, but a visitor center, lodging, camping, food service, and gasoline are available in Toulumne Meadows in summer.

We drove out the East Entrance of Yosemite National Park on Tioga Pass. The elevation at this point is 9,945 feet altitude.

We continued driving east outside the park.

We passed Ellery Lake, with an elevation of 9,538 feet.

An interesting informational placard along a turn out on the road about the building of Tioga Road. Please click to enlarge.

The views along the road of the rugged terrain are spectacular!

Another turn out overlook on the Tioga Road.

A close up of the interesting informational placard showing the length of Tioga Pass and Road as it travels into Yosemite National Park.  At 9,945 feet it is the highest automobile pass in California. Constructed in 1883, and 1910, it is a civil engineering marvel and called one of the most scenic mountain roads in all of California!

If you look closely you can see the Tioga Road continuing along the base of the mountain to the left.

We drove along Tioga road to Mono Lake. Mono Lake is the largest natural lake completely within the state of California. Once endangered when water feeding it was diverted toward the Los Angeles basin, it lost half its volume in the 40 years before an agreement was reached to save it.

At this point we turned around and returned to Yosemite National park and actually drove to see the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and the O'Shaughnessy Dam, but that will be a blog post for another time in the future.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this portion of Yosemite and the Tioga Road, a view that is not as often traveled as much as the western portion of Yosemite National Park is. Yosemite is truly one of the most beautiful parks in the American national park system, and one of most preserved untouched wilderness in our country.

I'm linking to Susan's "Outdoor Wednesday" on her blog A Southern Daydreamer, and Cathy's Adventure Express on her blog A Bit of the Blarney. Please visit Susan and  Cathy today to see their posts and the links to all the blogs participating today.

I'm linking this post to Jenny Matlock's "Alphabe Thursday." The letter this week is "C" and I can't think of anything better than the state of California and it's gem, Yosemite National Park!

I'm also linking it to Claudia's "Friday Finding Beauty" on her blog Dippity Road, and Sandi's "Friday Favorite Linky Party" on her blog The Whistlestop Cafe.

Please visit all these wonderful blogs and join in all the fun!