I live in a horrible place.

I had to ride down the road tonight with this as the backdrop:

I should probably move.

Finally! Mountain Foliage Ride

Since I've had horses here I've wanted to ride up in the mountains while the aspens are changing. Six years later it finally happened.

All below pictures of me by my friend JG.

Yeah, really can't complain about that parking space.

It's hunting season. But, I think wearing orange in the orange aspens is rather silly, so I break out the hot pink. No one was going to miss me.

See?

Naners was her usual awesome self.

I am spoiled for real life.

Over the fences we go

As you can see from the above pictures, Naners and I jumped today for the first time since she injured herself. We didn't suck, though I'm totally rocking the colors of my high school spirit club, the Dials (pink, blue, purple.) I bought the pink helmet for better visibility on the road and didn't even think of it when I threw it in the trailer today. It's very bright. Excellent for the purpose it was purchased for, but it will give one of the trainers I work with a heart attack (she's one of those hunter types that thinks we should all be in CO helmets and white saddle pads.)

The trainer we were working with had me doing three-point. I've never done a three-point in my life. Judging by how much better my jumping was using it as opposed to a two-point I will be revisiting it frequently (top pic, two-point on approach, bottom, three-point on approach.)

Assuming Naners is still sound tomorrow we've got another lesson and I'm thinking I might get a couple of more in before she heads back to Sweden. Boot camp for us maybe wouldn't be a bad thing.

Happy Banana

Banana, grazing. We're still increasing time, but she's up to about seven hours now. She's so happy to be out.

Mountain trail ride on Naners

Banana and I finally went on our first in the mountains trail ride. The ride was nice, the getting there not so much. Two people told us to look for the forest service station and to park there as that's where the trail heads are. We drove up the road, didn't see any signs for trail heads or the forest service station. Then we crossed a little bridge and the road deteriorated. We would have been able to turn around, except, of course, there were cars parked in the turn around. We had to back the trailer through an S curve, with a bridge in the middle, downhill, with rocks, trees or a steep bank on both sides of the road. It took us an hour, but even days later I'm still having anxiety about it. My friend and I switched out, when one of us was getting frustrated with backing the other would take over. The truck and trailer were almost unscathed, except I should have backed further to get into a little parking lot, except I didn't and got the plastic thingy on the front of the truck stuck on a big rock. Backed off it okay, but the plastic thingy is not as attached to the bumper as it once was.

Anyway, we rode through trees, through wildflower filled meadows and stopped when we got to a waterfall. Didn't spend much time there as the bugs were bad and back we came. Round trip it was about 8 miles.

Banana was wary of the first meadow as there were horse eating boulders in it. Then she had a mountain biker come around a corner and basically pull up under her nose and she just looked at him like, "What the hell?" She was fairly well behaved in general, but I wouldn't put a dead beginner on her, that's for sure.

We never did find the forest service station. However, there was a cabin that may have been it once upon a time and probably due to budget cuts is no longer. I have decided I will never again take the trailer anywhere that I am not absolutely positive of where I'm going, or have someone with me who knows exactly where we're going. I think I'm scared for life from having to back the trailer down the road.

Connecticut Part 4: Going back to CT

This waterfall was somewhere between Lockport and Buffalo and should have been in the last post

So now we are at the day of my dear friends wedding. I'll spare you the details, other than that I am beyond happy for her that she's finally found someone. The reception was on Grand Island where I got this cool shot:

Bridges to Buffalo

After that we splurged and got a hotel room in Canada with a view of the falls. However, due to fog it wasn't much of a view. Much better the next morning, but it was still grey and not pretty out.

We did the View Behind the Falls, where you go down in an elevator and there's tunnels behind the Canadian Falls. You can hear/feel the water pounding when you're down there and it was seriously cool.

Wearing my totally sexy poncho

I bought maple candy and viewed the falls from the top and then we were on our way home. But we got distracted and hit a couple more waterfalls

Pitt's Falls

Chittenango Falls

One of the awesome parts of this trip is I'm significantly down in elevation from home, so I feel like I'm extremely fit. That last fall I had to walk down to the bottom of from the top and I ran my way back up. Seriously. I can't run five feet at home elevation (7000')

Connecticut Part 3: More New York

Keeping on with our water theme, we started this day with a trip to Lockport to the Erie Canal (you know, the one where you sing about the low bridge, everybody down, low bridge cause we're coming to a town.) And, shockingly, there were locks in Lockport

Lock empty

Lock almost full

Doors opening so the boat isn't trapped in there forever

In Lockport there's a church with Tiffany windows. They were gorgeous

I really think these angels look like hippies

Then we went to the Great Behre Swamp (we like swamps.)

And then another church, Our Lady of Victory Basilica (my mom's religious, I am not.) But regardless, this place was seriously impressive.

I love this ceiling (or vaulting, if I'm using my college education.)

And then we went to the Erie-Buffalo Botanical Garden

Best topiary ever

Connecticut Part 2: Road Trip to Buffalo

One of my oldest, and definitely one of my most dearest, friends got married in Buffalo last weekend. So, mom and I took our yearly road trip to Buffalo.

We left CT, realized an hour later mom forgot her passport, which would make it quite difficult to get to Canada, so we turned around. When we finally did get to New York we went to Secret Caverns, which is next to the less rustic Howe Caverns. We went to Howe when I was a kid, so we went to the other one. Other than the waterfall it was sort of a lame cave (and I've been to many.)

After that, to Elmira, where I bought a new Kindle as mine died the true death the night before we left. Not unexpected, its been acting odd for several months. The next day we went to the Corning Glass Museum and made glass!

That's a flower. I also made a fused glass frame and an ornament. The glass museum is cool, but we only spent a bit of time there then drove on to the first of many waterfalls

Chequaga Falls in Montour Falls

Then, to Watkins Glen. I have somewhat of a memory of Watkins Glen from when I was a kid and wanted to see it again. If you ever visit, you want to either park at the top parking lot, or take the shuttle up, so you can walk down the glen, not up. We were smart, but my mom actually remembers all of her trips there :D

Be glad I didn't post more pictures, it's seriously cool.

We stayed in the middle of nowhere that night and then went to Letchworth Falls State Park. We went so early we almost had the entire park to ourselves. It has three large waterfalls.

Lower Falls

Upper Falls

Middle Falls

And then we went to Canada, to visit the Welland Canal, part of the St Lawrence Seaway. The way boats get from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario as there's a big waterfall in the river connecting the two. There's a significant height difference between the two lakes so there's locks.

That is a seriously big ass boat

We finished out the day by spending sometime on the shore of Lake Ontario where this momma squirrel hung out

And then we accidentally drove past the church we went to on that same childhood vacation

So, sort of funny story about this church, or as it's formally known, Our Lady of Fatima Shrine. I remember the statue on top. Mom remembers that it was round, my older brother remembers the ceiling (it has the continents on it.) My little brother remembers nothing.

Connecticut Fun, Probably Part 1

I'm in Connecticut visiting my parents, which means I got to visit the cows. Once upon a time I actually preferred cows to horses. They are always happy to see you due to their curiosity when sometimes horses aren't quite as enthusiastic.

They're chopping hay into silage right now, so I hung out in the truck with my dad as he drove loads from the field back to the farm. My cousin's wife brought us Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. Civilization has reached our little rural corner and it felt so odd to have coffee in the truck.

Of course, I couldn't be at the farm without actually visiting the cows. I finally met my three current cows, descendants of my original two cows born in 1987 and 1989. I'm selling them to my dad, years after I probably should have, but I enjoyed still having a connection. But now, due to my bitch aunt who seems incapable of naming my cows what I want them named, I'm going to get rid of them. I used to name every cow on that farm (with my deceased aunt) and current in-law aunt can't even name them what I want? I get so rage filled over this I've decided I need to let them go.

LB2 Stands for Lightbulb 2. Her name should be Lamp or something. I had a line of cows all with light related names. Started with Lumiere, then there was Lightbulb, Lantern, Lumen...

Leader? Seriously? I would never name one of my cows this.

Leggo, which should be spelled Lego

Anyway, okay, I'm going to try to calm down the rage here...

Milk cows on the hill

Heifer standing in the manger

Not my cow, but she was being photogenic

The above calf should be a purebred Jersey, but they're not quite sure. It sure doesn't look like one. Sometimes when a cow won't get bred they'll do a "hail mary" and just inseminate the cow with whatever spare semen is sitting around in my cousin's truck. This calf was part of a pair of twins and the other didn't survive, they often lose both, so it's pretty cool she's still around. And, she's pretty damn cool looking.

There was also a one day old calf

It wouldn't be a farm without a rusted out truck. Though this one has lichen too!