OVFF part 1

We (that is, birder2 and myself) drove to Ohio on Friday.  It was a wet but otherwise uneventful drive, and I only mention it because my car passed a geeky milestone on the way over. ( explanation and photographic evidence cut )

We arrived at the con and, got badges, and went to dinner with robin_june at Aladdin's, where I started a trend that would continue through the weekend by eating way too much because it was so good.  We got back about halfway through the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.


I got this picture of the lovely vixyish (with tfabris on the right) while she wasn't looking.

( Friday continues behind this cut )

Crisp day at Kickapoo

We had our coldest night yet this season Monday, well into the 20s.  It was a lovely, though chilly, day today, but more than a little bittersweet.  A few hardy flowers were left -- about the same as last week -- but the only representative of order Lepidoptera was an unassuming little brown moth.  No butterflies at all.  A fair number of crickety things were singing.  On the plus side, though, no mosquitoes.

The fall colors are still going strong; the rain this weekend doesn't seem to have stripped the trees.  I'm not sure if this is an unusually good year for fall colors or if I'm just noticing more than usual thanks to having the free time to get outside.

My plan for the day was to follow the Out and Back trail around and see if I could get my mental map straightened out.  I fairly definitely worked out that even though it seems familiar, the horse trail south of the haul road (which connects to the trail I found last week over Emerald Pond) is not actually part of the loop I've walked before.  I can't figure out why I'm so sure that I remember coming up that section of trail to return to the road; the trails just don't go that way.


Striking colors against a beautiful sky near the start of the Out and Back trail.

( click here for the rest of the day )