From Long Beach Island, the boys and I drove to Bloomingberg, NY, a small town in upstate near a friend of mine from college. As we neared the house where we were staying, we happened upon a box turtle crossing the road. We clambered out of the car to carry it across the street and to admire it. I don't think the boys had ever seen a land turtle; we've seen lots of swimming turtles in DC and environs.
The house where we were staying had quite the frat house ambience to it; I didn't like it very much, but it was quiet and nestled in the woods. The boys really liked it because it had a stand up arcade console from an actual arcade in it! That was a bit annoying. After unpacking and settling in a little, we drove up the road about 5 minutes and then hiked about 5 minutes more to get to a fire lookout tower. It was windy and foggy and pretty cool.
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| A panorama from the fog! |
The next day was brighter and nicer, so we went back and had a much better view.
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| There's a Cassius down there somewhere. |
After climbing, we set off to meet up with a good friend of mine from college, John Sharp. He is a professor at SUNY-New Paltz and was on our way to Amherst, MA where we were headed next. As we drove on a typical northeastern two lane highway, I saw a dark shape moving along on the road ahead of us. As we neared it, I thought it was a raccoon, but it turned out to be a small porcupine, the first I think I'd ever seen!
We met up with John in the parking lot of the
Bonticou Crag trail. He took us on a craggy climb in the Shawagunk Mountains. The boys practically sprinted up the rocks while John and I were a bit slower.
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| Our trail guide, Mr. John Sharp. |
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| Small fauna typical of the region. |
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The beginning of the ascent, and they're
already way ahead of us!
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Again, I stress they are agile and fearless.
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| At the peak, catching their breaths before the rapid descent. |
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| Maceo reflecting on nature's beauty for all of 23 seconds. |
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