Last Friday I took the buses to Elmira and when I got there I met my friend Wendy who lives there. She showed me around and we went to places that are familiar to her, although I also knew of them. The weather was great and it was a worthwhile trip. I really enjoyed seeing new and also old things again.
We started off at her place, and she had some flowers in the front yard that caught my eyes, so I stopped and snapped them before getting into the car to check out the first place.
At Gibson Park there is a bridge over a creek and I just had to capture it before heading toward the colour that I saw as we pulled into the parking lot.
The trees were already showing a bareness and I was hoping we would have enough leaves to make it worth the walk. Straight ahead it is very colourful, and so we pressed on.
As is very evident by the leaf cover of the ground, there was a lot more colour a few days to a week before this trip. But we had rain and I prefer to not go out in it. The wind would not have bothered me, but it brought the leaves down fast.
I took a lot of pictures where I looked up and caught the colour of the leaves against the blue and white sky, but am only putting up one or two here.
One of the difficulties when navigating leaf covered areas is that you can't see tree roots stick out, or fallen branches that are covered too. So we both shuffled to keep from tripping and fallen.
It is interesting when inside a bush, which is what the part of Gibson Park that we were in is, that the leaves were still very green. A few had changed colour, but there were still quite a few despite the cold nights we've been having.
This is a big uprooted root that must have been there for quite a while.
This is so colourful that I just had to put it in here.
There are some large roots from huge trees that had fallen some time ago. They were a stark contrast against the multicoloured carpet of leaves on the park floor.
Another beautiful colour vista as I looked up.
Moving onward despite the roots and leaves, but finding it a bit more strenuous.
At one point the carpet was not so thick with leaves, and there were green leaves on the low plants that protruded through the leaves.
It was getting more difficult to get through areas that looked as if there had been paths in the past. When we got to this point we decided to retrace our steps and take a different route.
Retracing our steps as we searched to find a path that is going to lead us back to the parking lot.
Another uprooted tree, of which we saw a lot that day.
And then we were back out in the open area again and retracing our way to the car so I could get more batteries.
Once I had put new batteries in the camera, we drove over to Lion's Park. I've seen some of this area but not near all of it and was really glad we went there. The field right beside the park has a bush running along a fair amount of it. It was very beautiful and the field was very green in contrast to the colour.
There were some trees in the park that had colour, but I was surprised that they were still as green as they were, being out in the open like that.
This part of Elmira borders onto farmland. There are a number of farms just west of town here, and the water tower is right out there too.
These trees were in a row at the fence-line between the park and the farms.
This farm was partially obscured by the hill between the buildings and where I was taking this picture.
There were three clouds and one that looked like it had a tail over this bush.
These trees were in a row at the fence-line between the farms and the park.
And just then I spotted the foot bridge that leads into a new housing development right from the park.
Wendy took a photo of me standing on that foot bridge with the
bush I had taken photos of behind me.
This bridge has apparently at certain times of year that there is
actually water running under it as there were lots of bullrushes
and teasel in the ditch.
And then I was able to get a picture of the bridge without a lot of the houses behind it.
As we were walking toward the end of the ditch that separated us from the pond that is next to the park, I took a shot across the park toward the bush seen in earlier shots.
I have never seen these small yellow butterflies till this summer and all of a sudden they were just flying all around us.
This is the pond I mentioned before, taken from the lawn of Lion's Park.
These trees are at the side of the ditch we had to go around to get to the pond.
One of these trees is also in this picture of Woodside Bible Fellowship.
This is a different point of view of the three trees.
I thought I just had to have a picture of the sign at the entrance to the Lion's Park.
This is the end of the ditch that separates Lion's Park and the parking lot for Woodside Bible Fellowship.
And then we were at the pond. But so far we have not spotted the blue heron that Wendy saw fly in here earlier.
As we walked around the pond I spotted something very red and just had to look to see what it was. It was trees with these red berries on it. I think it is a viburnum opulus, also known as the Guelder Rose.
The scenery around the pond and the pond itself were absolutely gorgeous. I'll have to get up there more often to see it.
I'm going to share a few shots of the 45 that I took of the blue heron. He tried to stay hidden so we couldn't see him. I had spotted him and when I did he was on the move to get as far away from us as possible. What he didn't realize was that he made it possible for me to capture him because he has no longer hidden.
Here is some more beautiful scenery around the pond.
There is an oak tree with beautiful coloured leaves and you guessed it, I had to capture it and a closeup of the leaves.
The sun was shining and making it interesting to get shots of things when facing it. But it was worth trying.
The blue heron was still here but he was trying to stay as far across the pond as possible from us. Here he is wandering over to the other side as I was trying to sneak up on him.
Some beautiful scenery between the pond and the housing that has been built up in the last few years.
More views of the pond from the path.
The blue heron was thinking I could not see him. hehehehehe!
The blue heron started to move more quickly and was gone almost before I could capture him. He went back to where he was when we first arrived.
And then the blue heron was hiding again, but had not flown away.
More colourful scenery beside the pond.
This picture has the Lion's Park in the background.
And this one has the housing development in it.
As we walked back to the car I was able to get a good shot of the farm that I had shown earlier.
We took a pitstop for lunch and while we were at Wendy's she
picked this bouquet, set it up and we took a bunch of photos of it.
While she was taking her photos I captured this shot of the
birchbark poles.
As we drove along we saw some bales of straw in one of the fields so we took a sideroad and captured some beautiful scenery from there.
From that road I was able to capture some neighbouring farm buildings.
From that spot we headed toward a road that had some beautiful colour at the intersection. I had also spotted this tree trunk that had some beautiful fungus in and on it.
Across the sideroad where I was taking the pictures of the fungus.
As we were out in farming country I had to capture in the farms and the beauty around them.
This was the initial sight that attracted us to pull over and capture the scenery.
And this is the view that first caught my eye as we were pulling over.
More angles of the tree with the fungus.
As we drove away I caught a view of the farm that was behind the tree with fungus and took this shot through the fence.
The bush we saw behind the field where that tree with the fungus was.
As Wendy pulled over to the side of the road I noticed that the river runs along the road here and I had never seen that the river was so close and it would be easy to capture pictures of it.
Wendy parked her car and we got out and walked along here to get some photos.
From this spot I was also able to capture the farm buildings that I had taken through the fence and grass much clearer.
I really enjoyed the beauty, and also open country freshness. I also didn't smell what some people refer to as "country air."
There was a line of evergreens to the right of this photo that hid this beautiful view. It looks like there was a small pond here at one time with a nice footbridge over it. However you can see it is empty as far as I could tell.
This a zoomed in a shot of the same bridge.
Back to the river side of the road.
I don't know if you can see it here, but there is a suspension bridge with the bush down the way as a backdrop.
A different angle of the footbridge.
And then I noticed the stump that was left behind from a tree that was cut down here.
A little further along the road we came to the property that had the white fence I had seen before. So we pulled over and were able to capture some beautiful colours and scenery.
While we were at this stop a huge piece of machinery came through.
It would be interesting to see this drive way with the lights on.
This scene would have been complete if the field had been filled with horses.
This bush was so beautiful.
A closeup of one of the trees in the middle of the field.
On the river side of the road there were also interesting trees. The river is hidden by the cornfield along here.
Another farm that was worth taking pictures of.
The distant valley looked colourful but also hazy.
When I looked at this cornfield I said to Wendy that is looked like someone had been picking the corncobs here. She wasn't sure what I meant until...
...we came around the end of the field and I saw the picking equipment parked there with the wagon full of corn cobs.
These trees had a lace-like look against the cloudy sky.
And then we walked back to the car.
As we were driving along I noticed a good shot but there was no place to safely pull over, so I snapped a picture through the windshield.
When we could we pulled over and stopped, getting out to walk a bit. This farm that is pictured here is one I have a number of photos of from the road at the top of the hill over there.
There was a farmer out ploughing his field. The four horses were struggling to get the work done.
While I was taking some of these last few photos I heard a horse
approaching, and I waited till it came into view enough that I could
capture the horse and covered carriage.
More river views.
This bridge crosses the Conestoga River at Hawkesville. This view shows the road as it enters the village.
While I was taking the photo of that bridge a blue heron flew into the other side of the river from where i was standing and I captured a couple of photos of him.
This is the river on the north side of the bridge.
The river on the south side of the bridge.
Some cattle in the field beside the river.
We considered walking down that path, driveway but there was a no trespassing sign at the gate. However I decided to take a picture from the fence-line, especially the fallen apples.
Another country photo taken at one of the farms.
These last few photos were taken along the river in a back lane.
I was so glad we had the chance to go for this drive and walk, and look forward to the next ones.
