Stony Brook Ramblings

Oh, fall is upon us and we are loving it! The days are much cooler but still bright and sunny (an added benefit of this glorious weather is a major reduction in sweat production as far as Liz's feet are concerned). This week Liz had a mini vacation - the first since May - and took us on an adventure with her friend Karen.

Liz and Karen began the day with donuts. It started innocently enough as a need for a restroom after the long drive but quickly degenerated into a carb/calorie fest. After we loaded our bellies we headed for a strange place that looked like a library inside except the books were all really big and none of them had words on the spine. Turns out it was a fabric store - um, quilt shop, that is (Yes, I fixed it Liz! Geez!)

After Liz and Karen spent money they shouldn't have on strange pieces of fabric we all piled back in the car and headed for Stony Brook State Park.

As state parks go, it's kinda smallish but well worth the drive. Since it was Tuesday and getting into the off-season parts of the year, there was no entrance fee and almost no people to run into on the trails. Did we mention the trails? Now, we've been on trails with Liz before but these ones seemed to only go in one direction - up. The stony brook runs through a gorge with very steep sides (I suppose it wouldn't be a gorge if the sides weren't steep, hmm).

Fortunately both Liz and Karen, while able to go the entire trail up one side of the gorge and back down the other, were not in the best shape of their lives and stopped frequently on the steep inclines to wheeze and chug water.

We know it looks bad but Liz really was okay, she just needed a serious rest before continuing up the neverending stairs. All of the height we gained while hiking the east rim provided some beautiful views of the gorge below.

Check out the rad waterfall. There were more once we reached the other side and the hiking was finally more down then up. On the west rim we got right down next to the water. It was very beautiful.

Here is one of our favorite shots from the trip. Check out the lone maple tree that is already red - it's as ready for fall as we are!

After we all had a hearty (and inhaled) lunch we found time for a little fun on the swings. One of these days Liz is going to kill us all trying to get these crazy action shots!



Wheeeee!!!!