The View From Here: Journey to Rhinebeck

I bring you my story about the NYS Sheep & Wool Festival. I was fortunate enough to attend this event 2 weekends ago, and the weather held up the entire time I was there. But I did pass through a few brief showers before reaching the festival.

I knew it was going to be a great day when I woke up just in time to see this glorious sunrise:

I couldn’t stop looking at it or taking pictures of it, until the sun peeked over the mountains. After that I got ready to leave for what would be an all day trip. I was making a stop in Cornwall to meet a friend and then it was on to the festival from there. I didn't realize it, but my journey would also be taking me down memory lane. It brought to mind all those annual fall foliage trips our family used to take when I was growing up. Every year we would drive on Saturday in October to Upstate NY to admire all the fall colors and stop at whatever interested us as we drove to Hepworth Farms on Route 9W. To my surprise, I would be taking the exact same route past the farm to get to Rhinebeck. I was delighted! As I got closer, I began to remember all the places we stopped, all the landmarks I had memorized, and how much they had changed or stayed the same in the years since I had last seen them. One place we often stopped was at a scenic overlook on the side of a mountain on 9W:

Plenty of scenic, “Sound of Music” breathtaking panoramas to be had here!

My route took me right past Hepworth Farms, but alas it was no longer there. It makes me melancholy because I remember they had a nice farm stand with all kinds of fresh veggies and fruit, a huge barrel with fresh apple cider in it, fresh hot donuts, and pumpkins. I would always get to pick a pumpkin to carve later for Halloween, get a tasty candy apple with coconut on top, and buy my absolute favorite jelly in the whole world, red currant jelly. Fortunately I have plenty of great memories and pictures to remind me of the special place that Hepworth Farms was, and here are a few of them:

After driving by a bridge, and crossing a bridge (I don’t remember the name of either),

it was on to Rhinebeck. It was my first time at the Sheep and Wool Festival, and I was looking forward to it. I was not disappointed. There was so much to see and do and hear, not to mention eat! If you would like to see my pictures from the festival, click on http://loomdude.blogspot.com/2011/10/loom-dudes-rhine-beck-journey.html.

The View From Here: Dramatic Skies

You know me and how much I love the drama of the skies around here (I never tire of them!), so here are a few more dramatic sky pics from the rolling hills of Central NJ:

This one reminds me of the scenery from the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute:

And for an equally "dramatic" dinner, homemade salmon burgers with sweet potato fries, a pickle, and a delicious cuppa pomegranate kefir!

Next time I will be posting pictures and sharing stories about my trip to the NY Sheep & Wool Festival, both here and on my Loom Dude blog.

The View From Here: Stormy September Part 2

And here is part two of the stormy September series:

And when the storms were finally over, we were rewarded with a rainbow:

The View From Here: Stormy September Part 1

Happy Autumn, everyone! We have been getting a bumper crop of storms around here lately. And where there are storms, there are plenty of interesting storm clouds to photograph; so many, I had to break this series up into two parts:







I always find it interesting how the shapes of the clouds sometimes mimic the shapes of the trees in front of them:



I like how the parts jutting out from the back of this truck appear to be reaching out for the sun:

Stay tuned for the completion of the series next week.