autumn

autumn at core creek…geese, deer, and a chance of humans...lake luxembourg

in

The thousands of geese are filling three of Nature’s elements this time of year: the Air, the Waters of Lake Luxembourg, and the Earth of the surrounding fields. The deer, thankfully, stick to the fields only. The weekend crowds of humans have faded; now I just sightsee the odd one here and there.

It’s the best stretch of the year: colorful, calm, pleasant, and quiet. Great light, great air, and nobody bothering anybody.

The views are so good it’s almost unfair. Choosing which photos to share was the real challenge. Your screens won’t show every tiny detail in the images, so I added a few close-up crops to give you a sense of what you’re missing.

Close-up crop of a tiny middle section of the panorama above

Close-up crop of a middle section of the image above

tyler park...hanukkah eve

in

A peaceful windless Hanukkah Eve at the Tyler Park

It’s the perfect condition for practicing the art of stone skipping and skimming

Geese flocks are heading to the Lake Luxemburg for a good night sleep

A lonely paraglider is exploiting this golden opportunity

to fly with feathered companions

before landing in his back yard to get home in time for Hanukkah celebration

jersey shore...first visit this year

in

It so happened that this year I and our four-legged family member, Naomi, were able to visit the Shore the first time only in mid-October. We missed it dearly to say the least.

 

Naomi enjoys the sun and the ocean breeze

 

Regulars enjoy the sun and the ocean breeze

 

I, behind the scenes, enjoyed the sun, the breeze, and taking these photos.

 

lake luxembourg…dragon boat racing

in

Yesterday I went to the Core Creek Park without a camera just for walking and relaxation. And sure enough there was a colorful event - the 5th Annual Bucks County Dragon Boat Festival. As I found out later the dragon boat racing has become the world’s fastest growing water sport. Although, for some reason I never heard of it before, the Bucks County Dragon Boat Association was established seven years ago and is doing very well - next year two of its teams will compete in 2020 IDBF Club Crew World Championships to be held in Aix-Les-Bain, France.

It would be a pity to miss this photo opportunity but the only option I had was to use my old iPhone’s camera. Its pictures quality supposed to be a far cry even from my 12 years old D2H camera so I never tried to take a photo with it. But as they say - ‘The best camera is the one you have with you’.

To my surprise (I know, I know that the latest and greatest smart phones produce great quality images but mine is a 6 years old patriarch) the camera performed better than I expected and pictures came out pretty usable for online posting, even though not good enough for enlargement and printing. On the bright side it’s always with me and it saved my day. So here we are.


mr luxembourg lake...golden hour...waterfowl

in

Almost every time I visit Lake Luxembourg I meet my old pal Blue Heron. It has a couple of favorite spots there and it is not shy to show off its glamour physique. This most popular image of it so far was taken in 2015.

In my judgment, it still easily wins the Mr. Lake Luxembourg title in 2018.

And the runners up are… our own Canadian geese

The honorable mention goes to the cormorants for the great teamwork.

Sadly, nothing good ever last long enough. The golden hour quickly ended with dusk and everybody looked forward to a good night's sleep.

lake luxembourg...thoreau...controlled solitude

in

All solitude are equal, but some solitude are more solitary than others. The loneliness of Robinson Crusoe is not quite the same as the solitude of Henry Thoreau. I would define the latter as a controlled solitude in which one lives kind of divorced from society knowing that this status can be interrupted at any time if desired.

Thoreau did not invented this lifestyle but he was one of the most famous practitioner of it. All in all he lived alone over two years in a small cabin near the shore of the Walden Pond in Concord, MA. Here he enjoyed the feeling of solitude living on $28 per year (in 1845; it is equivalent in purchasing power to about $900 in current dollars) and growing crops to feed himself.

On the other hand, in all honesty the wildness of his life was slightly overstated taking into account that the distance from his cabin to the closest house was just a mile and he visited friends and family several times a week as well as had sometimes up to 30 visitors in Walden. And his Mom helped him out with laundry and food over these two years. Still it’s quite an achievement for a modern Western man.

As for myself, I also consider the solitude a very valuable part of my life but I prefer to enjoy it similarly but conversely – to live in a comfortable house and drive a mile to the Lake Luxembourg shores for my daily portion of solitude.

Its shores are extremely beautiful and completely emptied this time of the year.

Unoccupied garden benches stay here and there as reminders of a cheerful summertime.

Corn is still drying in the well manicured field.

Occasionally one can come across a lonely fisherman,

a solitary hunting heron,

a family of ducks that can’t stand each other anymore,

or a dreaming cormorant.

 

To finish on a lighter note, not only introverts enjoy the lake in the fall - this company of extravert turtles, herons, and egrets was photographed at the lake in early September.

oh shenandoah...skyline drive...november

in

'Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter, away, you rolling river '. In my memory, I can still hear the deep powerful voice of Paul Robeson coming from the trumpet horn of a wind-up gramophone. I was probably five years old, the place was the post-WWII Odessa, Stalin was still alive and worshiped, and the anti-American campaign, namely, the Cold War, was in high gear. The warfare was utterly schizophrenic as well as the Soviet world around me - American spies and their helpmates were around every corner, however, trucks on the streets were mostly American-made lend-lease trucks; I was dressed in a colorful American jacket from a Joint humanitarian parcel, my only jacket that I was ashamed to wear; my Dad shaved himself with Gillette razor blades; 'Tom Sawyer' was the first English book I read, and Paul Robeson was my favorite singer. His pure Americana records were freely distributed in the anti-American Russia of that time as he was on the right side of the barricades - he was a card-carrying Communist and Stalinist and was even awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952. Go figure!

I completely forgot all this along with a lot of other things in my life and it floated up in memory just recently while reviewing my Shenandoah National Park images. The funny part, by the way, is that I had perceived the Shenandoah lyrics incorrectly as a rhetoric expression of 'a daughter of the place/river'. Actually, the river mentioned in the song was Missouri and Shenandoah was a real person, an Indian chief. The Shenandoah valley and the river there was named after this chief by George Washington in recognition of the chief's support of the Americans during the Revolutionary War.

Anyway, it was my first visit to any National park, not counting the Valley Forge, I had great expectations regarding potential photo opportunities, took a lot of heavy lenses and a solid tripod to cover two days of shooting while the rest of the group would bike along the scenic Skyline Drive. It never happened, it was so cold and windy outside that I did not even touch the damned tripod and made all my shooting handheld from the numerous overlooks leaving my car for not more than five minutes in a row. On the bright side, despite the uncooperative weather the light was amazing, constantly moving shadows from the clouds over the hills created spellbinding landscapes.

We entered the park through the Front Royal entrance, drove to the Skyland Resort and left the park via the Thornton Gap entrance the next day.

view from an overlook #1

view from an overlook #2

view from an overlook #3

view from an overlook #4

view from an overlook #5

view from an overlook #6

On our way back we visited the Luray Caverns  (not impressed) and a small nice Car and Carriage Caravan museum.

outstanding display of vintage vehicles

bye-bye shenandoa