In-town walk — Cayuga Heights and Cornell Heights — look-outs and grand houses
Lake View Cemetery — West Hill and the lake (as advertised) in the background Mausoleum — this is a nice building to look at, but I’d much rather be buried than stuck in one of theseSunset Park — the Cayuga Heights DPW does a great job of keeping the view open and unobstructedCayuga Heights Road approaching Carl Sagan’s former house — fantastic views straight down into Fall Creek gorgeMore fantastic views — Sagan’s house in the background — crossing this bridge in a car doesn’t give you anything like the same experience as walking across it Pedestrian bridge over Fall Creek gorgeIn the sprawling fraternity neighborhood — definitely the least impressive frat house we sawThe hikers were captivated by some sculptures of storks — and a large blue heron that flew up onto the roof of the big houseHeading down to gawk at the beautiful mansion of the late Roy Park
I got a new camera earlier this year that has a flash, so now for the first time I can get a few shots inside at out get-togethers — this is Iris, our hostess — she’s a long-time art teacher, and her top and her house both reflect a classic artist’s taste, IMO, a liking for decoration and ornamentation, patterns and bold strong colors. My own taste is dull, and I enjoy the vivacity of hers.Maybe you can see from the photos some of the food we had — though I’m not sure it’s recognizable — in any case, there was a good deal of itI brought six cans of beer — once again, no one but me drank any so I brought it back home — our hikers just don’t drink beer — but they do love wine, as maybe you can tell from noticing the cluster of bottles here
And here’s something a bit different — Randy borrowed my camera for a few minutes and came back with some Andy Warhol-style flashbulb-type party shots — I didn’t crop any of the shots because I like the details in the backgrounds
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Sat Nov 30
Monkey Run Natural Area, south side of Fall Creek — Varna
We had a special first-time hiker with us, Ellie (right front) — it turned out that some years ago she was in Puerto Rico and she brought a number of starving and homeless dogs back to Ithaca, and managed to find them homes — among the dogs she rescued were our regular weekend hiking companions Ruby and Diego
