Fort Stanwix

Recently I've been scouring my various hard drives (I have three, and will probably need to buy a fourth relatively soon) in search of what I call the "lost images." These are pictures that I took for one reason or another, and then never did anything with. They just sit there in their own little digital graveyard, never seeing the light of day. But I know these images meant something to me when I took them, so I'm determined to bring them out of hiding and show them to you.

These were taken in October of 2006 on a trip to Fort Stanwix in Rome. The kids had fun exploring the fort and I enjoyed the rustic feel of the place.


I love the reflection in the rain barrel...

Run Aground

I have a few more random pictures from our camping trip that I may or may not post, because although they are decent images, they aren't really all that exciting to me. I do like this one, though.

A Saturday in Sabattis: Evening Light

Saturday evening brought us a nice little sunset over the pond. Nothing like an Oswego sunset, but just enough color to make everything look pretty. The first thing I noticed as I was walking down to the pond was the way the light was reflecting off these boats...

Such nice silhouettes and reflections...

A Saturday in Sabattis: Onward and Upward

Or, Who Says Fat Chicks Can't Climb Mountains?

Saturday afternoon brought blue skies and plenty of sun. It also brought the dreaded hike. Just as I'm not a fan of camping, I'm also not fond of hiking. I'm always afraid of twisting an ankle or some similar catastrophe. But being caught up in the spirit of the weekend, I agreed to go. Our fearless leader (the pack's Cubmaster) assured me that it wouldn't be a bad hike. He told me that the trail only goes about a mile out, although (and this is the important part) "it gets a little steep at the end." Uh, huh. Sure.

See this pretty picture? Lovely trees and lake, beautiful mountain view, right?

It was taken from here. Yeah. When he said "a little steep at the end" what he really meant was "We're going to climb a mountain." I kid you not.

Really.

We're not 100% sure which mountain it was (we only know that the trail was called "Duke Rock Trail"), but as near as we can figure it was Graves Mountain, elevation 2,313 feet. Not the biggest peak in the Adirondacks, but much higher than I ever thought I'd go. Or could go.

But it really was a beautiful view. I'm glad I was tricked into going, even if I did think I was going to die at various times during the climb. :)

The boys made it up the mountain with no major problems. Griffin tripped and fell on his face twice on the flat part of the hike, but managed the climb without incident. He's weird like that.

This was taken as we came back down. I need this little reminder that yes, fat chicks really can climb mountains.

Oh, and the really bad Photoshop crown is so you can't see how horrible my hair looked after all the sweating I did along the way. :)

No Bears!!

As I mentioned, this past weekend I went with my family - and a couple dozen other people from Grant's Cub Scout pack - to the Adirondacks to go camping. We stayed at Camp Sabattis near Long Lake, which is our Council's Boy Scout camp. Now normally I don't camp. It's just not something I enjoy. I consider myself to be allergic to tents, sleeping bags, latrines and mosquitoes. Especially mosquitoes. My idea of "roughing it" is a hotel room without a good cable channel selection on the TV. You get the picture. But this time I was promised bears. More precisely, pictures of bears. I was told that black bears are always wandering in and out of the campsites there. So I agreed to go on this trip, figuring that it would be a nice inexpensive family weekend and that Griffin would have fun on his first camping trip (which he did - mostly). And that I would get some pictures of bears. But I didn't. Not a single one. No bears at all this weekend. {pouts all day}

But aside from the no-bears thing, we did have a good time. We arrived late Friday evening and left right after breakfast Sunday morning, so most of my pictures were taken on Saturday. We had beautiful weather that day, sunny and low 80s. Though I would have liked it to be a few degrees cooler in the afternoon, for reasons that will be clear to you when you read tomorrow's post. But in general it was a lovely day...

A Saturday in Sabattis: Morning Mist

Just down the path a few yards from the camp's dining hall is a little pond. Since I'm not a good tent-sleeper I was up at dawn, before almost everyone else in camp. I threw on my sweatshirt, grabbed my camera bag and headed down to the pond to see it in the early-morning light. I was greeted by a sleepy morning fog. I love fog. It just makes everything seem so peaceful...





Coming up tomorrow - part two of A Saturday in Sabattis: Onward and Upward. Stay tuned!