November 11 -

This is mostly going to be pictures today.  For the first time in almost forever, I went to Highland Park here in Rochester a couple of days ago.  I didn't go too far into the park, ended up on one side where a quiet garden dedicated to reflection and memory spread across the landscape created by Frederick Law Olmstead. 

The Veteran's Walk was created as a memorial to soldiers who fought in the war in Vietnam and who didn't come home.  In its Reflection area are reminders of others in other wars who lost their lives as well.

I heartily abhor politics and never discuss them.    I am simply showing pictures of a memorial that gives all who come there a sense of peace amid the stillness.

The  stone at the start of the walkway.

The map of the area.

A view down and across the hill.

There are 280 bollards (the posts you see) representing the 280 local soldiers who fell in Vietnam.  At the top of each bollard is a plaque with an individual's name, date of birth and of death.

The walls of the walkway -   and a firebush, because it's a firebush!

In several areas stand rough hewn granite plinths with the names of various people who helped the Veterans' Walk become a reality.  And along the edge of the path starting at the beginning, lie the stones you see above.  They provide a chronological history of US involvement in Viet Nam.  That in-volvement started in the early 1950 and continues through the next two decades.

The central or Reflection area.  The various marble "boxes" talk about not only VietNam, but also World War II and the Korean Conflict.  More firebushes!

This is a lot of firebush! It's about ten feet tall!

Leaving the reflection area and looking back over my shoulder one last time.

This is the statue honoring those who have given their lives for our country.  It's a very hard thing for me to talk about, and I didn't go too close to it.  Next time I'm there, I'll take a closer look and see what the  stone pillar has on the top.

That's it for today.  I hope you enjoyed!

We have SNOW

Now, admittedly, it's just a flurry and it's going to end up stopping because we're also warming up.  BUT, we have snow!  Just wanted to put this in as a marker because I'm like that!!!!!

Chortles and runs off to pour coffee!!!!

The Park Part of the Lake and the Park

Well, there are a lot of parks along the shore of Lake Ontario, I'm sure.  But the one I'm talking about today is Webster Park, and I'm only going to touch on the little of it that I walked on Tueday; the park covers 500 acres in all.Webster is a small town (with its own zip code) a few minutes east of Irondequoit which is East of Downtown Rochester.  Complicated, isn't it? 

Webster Park is open year round and has trails for hiking and cross country skiing, campgrounds and pavilions and is a great place just to go and chill out, no matter what time of year it is.  And its property goes down the the edge of Lake Ontario.  Soo, because the weather was absolutely gorgeous on Tuesday, off I went, camera in hand.  I came home 4 hours later, dog tired, but with pictures that I even kind of like!!!  And that I am hereby inflicting on YOU! Aren't you lucky?

I have a thing about firebushes, even when they are past their prime.  This is one of two monsters that guarded the parking lot entrance that I used on Tuesday.  It's taller than I am -

This a close up of the leaves and the berries.  I had a problem getting the color perfect - the bush has been red for a bit of time, so the reds were starting to pink out.  That's the trouble with getting fall color.  It's better if a person just can go to sleep under the target bush in order to grab the color when it's just right...sigh...

This is a tree.  With yellow leaves, and they're pretty spectacular. But what I'm focusing on is that surprisingly blue water there in the background.  Yes, folks, it's Lake Ontario.  The same Lake Ontario that spent my last Post being a rather over zealous imitation of a hurricane.

I'm looking down a steep hill toward the water in this tranquil picture.  There is a cement walkway about 1/3 of the way up the picture, and some quiet water on the near side.  Out beyond the walkway is the lake (but I've already said that!)

I'm still walking along the crest of the hill and taking shots down toward the lake.  Because, of course, I want to!  And it's all about MEEEEEE!'

I kept saying "Just one more" to myself, and I promised that I'd stop after than just one more!  Well sort of, maybe.

Turning away from the lake for a moment, I looked back toward the picnic area across the way.  I hope you don't get tired of trees all gussied up for autumn!  I hope, oh please!!!!  In the background is a goodly portion of this particular open area, which is only one of several in the park.

The tree is there in the left side of this picture, and you have a better view of the field behind it. 

If one continues to walk to the right in the picture before this one, you will come to another "edge" as the hill rolls down and away.  I liked the various colors in this shot - some bits are still fully autmn, and others are more sensible and have pulled in for the winter.

I continued back to the parking lot of the firebushes and crossed it to explore some larger, mature trees.  The shot above here is a Karen-shot, named after my friend, Karen, who lives in Gateshead near Newcastle upon Tyne in England.  The tree is verrrrrrry tall, and I had a great time looking up and getting the best angle for the shot!!!!

This is one of the smaller pavilions in the Park.  There are larger ones as well as places like The White House (a former tuberculosis sanitarium) which can be rented for parties or weddings, reunions, wild orgies in the middle of the night (no, not really, I'm kidding!) that sort of thing.  The tree in the previous picture is behind me as I take this picture.  (Please be patient with my verb tenses...).

This picture looks a bit to the right of the last one.  You can see the grey pavement of Lake Road in the upper right corner of the shot.  We're looking down an extremely nifty hill!

And then, because I'm not all that disciplined, I panned (how 'bout that?  A photography term!  And a mining for gold term!!!!) back a bit and caught this shot. 

I wandered along without any real goal in mind other than taking pictures of trees and leaves.  Then I saw these two and the steep slope they had grown on and decided to snap a picture.  The trees are magnificent!  My personal opinion, of course, but I really do think they're wonderful!

And the slope of the hill?  Skiing anyone?

I know, you're stunned.  Another tree?  Gayle, who'd have thought there would be so MANY in a park, of all places!!!!!   The notion!!!!

This satiny grey bark is sycamore, and it's one of my favorite trees because of the skin it wears.  (Anyone who's read this already knows that I'm almost sickenly oooooh- and ahhhhhhh - over sycamores!)

And just like THAT, we've returned to Lake Road and have driven all of about 1/10th of a mile to Mill Creek.  The parking area is small and nestled between the lake and the base of the hill that reaches down to the water.  No matter how I tried, I couldn't find a whitecap anywhere, so, after due consideration, I decided that the fine-ness of the day wasn't a hallucination.  Parked the Monte-C. and joined several other people who were busy either taking pictures or fishing or just plain walking and enjoying the sun and the silence.

I know that pictures of a lake, no matter how large, can be less than stimulating.  But Ontario and its brothers are so large that I just wanted to get as many pictures of it as possible.  I'm shooting a little to the left of my previous picture.

This is the Inlet for Mill Creek.  The green "stuff" is seaweed.  And, of course, there are rocks.  A LOT of rocks.

Of course, I wasn't about to let go of the trees all that easily!  SOOOO, here I am down at lake level looking up at trees growing along the crest of the hill.  You can get a good idea of just how steep the hill is this way.

But my attention returned to the lake.  As I walked along the shore, I kept an eye out for something interesting in the rocks and water.  And here's what I saw!  I could see the bottom of the lake, not only see it, but see it clearly!  It was a gorgeous sight!

This is the lake bottom as my camera saw it on Tuesday.  The picture isn't finagled with at all - for once I kept my editing little hands out of things!  LOL!!!!

I'll let the picture speak for itself.  But WOW!

The next few shots are basically a little playing around on my part.  I'm doing a panorama of the horizon, bounded on the left by a head of land, ditto on the right.  Hang on, because there are a few.  They overlap irregularly but are pretty continuous.  Lake Ontario may be the smallest of the Five Great Lakes, which makes Superior positively terrifying in retrospect.

Remember, this is a view of from just one point along the shoreline.  The lake is 193 miles long and 53 miles wide at its widest point.  There is a great deal of horizon to see.  Still impresses me a lot, and I was born in Rochester!!!!

Then, because I'd spent a lot of time looking a long way out, I decided to look down at the water again.  I had, by that time, walked out on the causeway that also acts as a breakwater.  This rock is fairly shallow in:  it's possible to see the bottom of the lake here as well.

I'm looking back toward shore whilst standing on the concrete walkway.  The breakwater is made of (surprises!)  stones from the lake and the surrounding area.  Nothing like using the resources at hand to build something!

The patterns that the sunlight made on the water and under the water are wonderful!   I love this shot!  (Don't I sound comfortable wih the idea that I'm a photographic genius?  Of course I do!)

On that note, I'm going to finish part one of my afternoon at the Lake.  All this typing is beginning to make me battier than usual!

Back tomorrow with the rest of the shots!  I promise!

The Lake and the Park - a Post in a couple of Parts or Four

Hi, all!

It's I, that strange and unusual critter back again to cause you all agita.

For those of you who don't know, I live in Rochester, NY, just a smidgeon south of Lake Ontario.  It's the smallest of the Great Lakes - I've done the whole length, width and depth thing before, so I won't bore you with it again.

One of the things about the lake is its changeability.  And that, among other things, is what this post (or posts) is (or are) going to look at.

First, the lake having a really BAD temper tantrum.  These pictures were taken 2 weeks ago today off the pier in Charlotte (emphasis on the second syllable).  The wind was out of the North West and making everything unsettled.  To say the least.  I took my friend Crys (Hi!) up to see the storminess and these pictures resulted.

Here is Crys letting the wind snarl her hair (I think it blew so hard that it unsnarled it all over again!!!)

Kindly note the lovely grey tones in the picture.  Grey and muddy brown with some grey whitecaps were the colors for the day.

From a distance (well a short distance) these don't look like much, and, indeed, they're rollers heading for the wet and clingy sand on the beach.

More of the same, only closer.  Also, the pier is a fair distance above the water line - at this point, probably six feet.

To give you an idea of what you're looking at:  We are standing on the pier.  Directly to our right, and set between two breakwaters set (I'm terrible at guesstimates) probably 150 feet apart is an accessway to a marina on the edge of the lake.  We're looking at some really massive whitecaps rolling in toward shore at a tremendous rate.

Closer to the pier we're standing on, the water is having a field day.  White caps roll steadily in toward the land, and leave froth in their wake.  They aren't quiet.   And, at the size they are, they don't have to be nice!

 Out in the lake, near the horizon on your left, there floats a fishing boat belonging to some private individual with a death wish.  Are you KIDDING me?  No going out into this water!  Well,unless you're a rabid angler, I guess.

If you look off to the right of the picture and center on the crest at the edge of the image, then take a look at the trough of the wave closer to you, you'll have an idea of the size of these things.  It's a really strong system making the lake all choppy.

Some of the waves hit the beach and slap sand away as they tread in.  Others, on the other hand, do this:

AND THIS (NEXT PICTURE).

which happened at the end of the pier we were standing on.  (I took about a zillion pictures before I figured out how to focus ahead of the wave and take what my shot my might be.  I was moderately happy with this one, believe me!  :)

The end result of each wave, of course, is this:

Note to self - do NOT get that near a wave unless you want to get wet and risk the camera.

Now, along with the thunder and crashing of waves on water,I found at least one other perspective that was something I wasn't too embarrassed to share.  (I am SO not a good picture taker!)

And there it is, a stormy day on Lake Ontario.  It can be a good deal worse:  this is one lake that demands respect.  I hope you liked the piccies!