Category Archives: fall foliage

Spruce Mountain Fire Tower Hike

We did another official trail hike, but first – the pink picture of the day! My new biking jacket. It is super bright 😀

On to the hike! On Monday, my sister and BIL had the day off since they are state employees. I was working, but managed to take off in the afternoon so John and I could join them on the hike. The trail we went on was Spruce Mountain. This trail was finally finished after getting some easements to make the trail passable all the way to the fire tower. The firetower was in disrepair for many years, but they just finished the restoration so that you can climb up the 5 (!!!) stories to get to the top. The trail closes by mid October for hunting season, so there are only a couple weeks left to go.

Apparently,we were not the only ones who wanted to squeeze in a holiday hike. We were pretty surprised at the number of cars at the trail head.

It actually wasn’t super crowded on the trail and it seemed most people were on their way down when we started up.

Since there were easements, instructions were to stay on the paths. Some property owner put this up by a section:

Okay, then. The trail was pretty much all wooded on the way up and mostly just forest floor instead of the rocky climbs we have done before.

Check out how this tree perfectly fell into the V of two other trees.

Talk about threading the needle. We had to duck a little bit under this tree.

You could almost make 2 canoes out of this split tree:

Woodpecker damage on an old stump:

This trail pretty much kept climbing upwards for the whole 1.2 miles to get to the firetower. It definitely got the heart rate up there! We did have Gryffon with us again on this hike, so we took breaks for him (and us!).

He’s so special he has his own collapsible, portable water bowl!

More and more climbing and we started to enter a different landscape:

Yippee!! We finally saw our destination:

I have to say the thought of climbing this made me a little nervous. I am not a fan of heights, but I didn’t hike 1.2 miles up a mountain not to get to the top!

Gryffon didn’t get to go up in the tower. He was attached to a tree while we climbed:

There were only a few people there, thank goodness. It would have been hard to get up and down if we had been there earlier with all the people we saw coming down. Good thing I was busy at work in the morning and delayed the hike 😉

The fire tower was originally built in 1928 (there I go with my favorite time period). Thank goodness they refurbished it… Colleen and Dave climbing:

The view was getting better with each floor up:

Colleen says “Lean out of the tower!”. She wanted our picture from above. Eek! Not too far. (This was her picture).

These actually were out of order as John and I climbed first and she took these when we were on our way down, but I wanted to save the view shots for last.

Higher and it was a loooong way down. Look at the tiny people below:

It was a little scary, I have to admit, but the view was incredible. This is at the very top. There is a plexiglass enclosure so you don’t fall out, I guess, although the floors on the way up are wide open.

You can see for 120 miles from up here and are the colors not amazing?!!?!

We made it!! Top of the world!

Interesting note. Selfie was done on my phone. You can see the difference how the phone does not pick up the fall colors like the Rebel does.

We really picked the perfect day to go to see colors. I just could not get over this view. Here is the shadow of the firetower while we were up top:

This was definitely worth the climb up. Going down was pretty much all downhill and fast (relatively for hiking). I took a few more pictures, but they just can’t compare to the fire tower shots LOL. It was about 2.5 miles round trip for this hike. I do recommend this one for sure. Several days later and I keep thinking about the view from the fire tower.

Fall Foliage Tour

You know those times when everyone you know is out of town? That would be me – including John being away.

So how about I take you on a fall foliage tour? It was cloudy on Saturday, which is a good type of weather for taking foliage pictures, although it would have been better if the sun was a bit brighter through the clouds.

I snagged John’s clear glasses to ride in since I didn’t need my shades, but still need eye protection.

I’ll just let the shots do most of the talking.

At the marsh:

Me looking over the bridge:

How a smidge of video? Don’t try this at home, kids.

You can hear me crunching over the leaves 😀

Arrival in Lake George!

I made a couple of stops for my snack. I saw the display at this store, which really cracked me up.

A combined win-loss score for all 3 teams is 2-11, with both wins belonging to the Bills. Not a happy sight in this window. (Go Broncos!)

First up was Lake George Baking Company for an Apple Snitzel Tart. It’s really just a mini apple crumb pie. And a then latte from Cafe Vero, complete with latte art! I took these to the dock to eat.

I know you want a better picture of that tart, right?

That was a nice snack, although I was getting chilly here by the water. There is always a breeze coming off the lake.

Is this tree not amazing in color?

Then homeward.

Fall colors really just can squeeze at my heart. They are so beautiful.

I love the burning bush.

It’s glorious!

I took a million pictures, but I think that’s enough. 😀 What a wonderful ride today.

Ride stats:

Total miles: 32.1

Average speed: 11.7 (lots of stops)

Top speed: 28.2 mph

Calories burned: 1206

2013 total ride miles: 2186, maybe I can break 2200 if it doesn’t rain on Sunday!

Pink Picture of the day:

Make sure to stop by on Monday for this month’s AIM post!

Friday this and that

This week went by so fast, didn’t it? Just a few things happening. John finally won the football picks in week 4, so ‘we’ celebrated his win at Recovery Grill.

I hope he enjoyed his only win this season…

Friday was the yearly potluck lunch for my garden club. It’s funny, we never have a list of who brings what and there is always such variety. I made a pumpkin crunch cake, which I used from this recipe (with a couple tweaks). Mainly I added vanilla and I actually mixed cold butter and cake mix together to form a crumb topping.

Ali – this is for you!

I was concerned about how much this made and that I was going to have a bunch of this leftover this weekend. Well, my garden club peeps did a good job. Upon return home:

Need to save some for John! 😀

It was a lovely drive to the potluck, too, even though it was gray and drizzly. It’s about peak around here. Here are a couple shots I took on my bike ride yesterday. This tree picture was taken last week:

One week later:

So pretty.

Fall color is so fleeting.

Pink picture of the day – also taken on my ride. Local laundromat!

You definitely notice this building.

Not sure how much riding will be happening this weekend. Kind of rainy, but I will probably squeeze something in!

Peeks of color and Moe’s!

This week has been exceptional fall weather! Pretty cold overnight, but warming up into the 60s during the day and sunny. My bike hours are limited now. I am not going in the evenings any more. I went out Tuesday at 6 pm and the traffic was terrible, not to mention the sun angle was a little on the dangerous side. I decided that was enough of that. 🙄

I waited today for temps to rise into the 50s before going on my ride. I tell you – I had Fridayitis on Thursday! It was so hard working today. I was talking with some of my coworkers (on facebook) and I was not the only one. Today is the last day of the pay period, so it really feels like the end of the week.

Anyway, here are some shots from my ride this morning. You can see the Virginia Creeper in this one:

Getting some peeks of fall color. This part of the path is still pretty green:

Selfie!!

Another nice shot of the canal:

It’s actually better to photograph fall color on an overcast day when the colors glow, but I’ll take a sunny bike ride.

A little over 12 miles done today. I will have a great week of riding under my belt come Sunday night!

I had an interesting lunch today. John bought some cider at the farmer’s market last weekend and I decided to make a protein drink with it. This was 8 oz of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 4 ounces of cider and 30 grams of unsweetened protein powder.

It was pretty good. Definitely sweet, though.

I managed to win the football picks for a third week in a row (because I rock), so it was out to dinner! Our anniversary is this weekend and we will be going out for dinner as well, so I decided to go a little cheaper.

Welcome to Moe’s!

This was a burrito bowl with chicken. I had chips, too. Pretty tasty! I had a salt craving, so that is why I wanted Moe’s. 😀

Unfortunately, I think my football win streak will be at an end. Not feeling confident with this week’s picks, starting with the Rams tonight!

Foliage, flooring and finds!

Finally! After 2 weeks, I was able to get on the bike. Saturday was drizzly and blustery, so I had to wait until Sunday. I knew a cold front was coming in, but I was going to ride to breakfast no matter what the temperature Sunday morning if it wasn’t raining. Well, it was 41 degrees!

COLD!! I was wearing 3 layers to stay warm. I let John sleep in, being the nice wife that I am, because he had a very late poker night. It was a nice solo fall ride.

As I got closer to town, I saw some race volunteers and realized that the Glens Falls duathlon was today!

This is one of the races I have my eye on for next year. 5K run, 30K bike, 5k run. They were setting up the run part. There were a lot of volunteers, too, which is great!

The race wasn’t due to start for 30 minutes or so from when I was riding through, so I got to go on part of the course. The fun thing? As I was going through – the volunteers were cheering me on LOL! That was the most fun breakfast ride I have ever had 😀

I arrived at Coffee Planet ready for some coffee. Don’t you love the big mug they have outside the shop?

I also got the great shot of the paper mill. That’s all steam coming up as the sun is trying to break through the clouds.

Toasty warm inside and all decorated for fall.

Just as I got there, I got a text from John that he was up, so he drove out to meet me for breakfast. Yay!

He just started a winter goatee, too. Scruffy!

After breakfast, I continued my foliage ride. Enjoy some photos:

I was so flipping happy to be on the bike, runny nose and all.

Wild asters:

Everyone is getting ready for Halloween. Even the businesses!

A little canal riding.

That was a nice 18 mile ride for the day.

John told me that my neighbors were setting up a garage sale when he left the house, so I headed right over there after I got back from my ride. I got a wooden bench for the front porch:

Just needs a coat (or 2) of paint. When I asked how much the bench was, they said $8!!!! I didn’t even dicker, which I don’t really do anyway, but I tried not to get really excited. I also got this little rocker for $3!!!

Also needs paint, but that’s cheap. Grand total of $11 today for 2 pieces of furniture. I got a total shopping high, too. And free delivery as the neighbors carried the bench to my porch 😀

We are now on the last room for flooring. Emptying out the living room. The couch is now in the dining room.

This is Pixie’s ‘rub my belly’ pose. She rolled over for belly rubs and got kind of stuck in the couch. One thing about the floors? They really brightened up the rooms, which were already pretty bright. The sun bounces right off the floor.

This is not the final spot for the piano, obviously. Need to put down shoe molding before it goes back in place. Love, love, love so far.

Now if the Broncos win against the Patriots today, my Sunday will be just about perfect!

Pink item of the day: Mums!

Productive weekend and fall colors

We had a nice relaxing weekend. No real long rides (somewhat weather dependent). We have just been doing so much on weekends that it was nice to kick back at home and get stuff done!

I was quite productive on Sunday, though. We did manage to bike 12 miles round trip to breakfast today to Orange Cat.

I had a gluten-free cinnamon raisin bagel.

We did some grocery shopping today and the store had carving pumpkins on sale for $3.99 each! That is an awesome bargain as normally you pay by the pound and we got 2 giant pumpkins to carve. Look how big:

It dwarfs the gallon of milk! These would have been $12 pumpkins easily. I may have to get another one this week as I love carving.

I settled in for some batch cooking after lunch, which included a feta cheese omelet and grapes!

Things that were made this weekend:

Gluten-free pumpkin scones (recipe coming)

Pumpkin Granola

Alton Brown’s Easy Brown Rice:

Coffee roasting:

Dang! When we don’t pack our weekends with other stuff, it is amazing what can actually get done at home. I even vacuumed!

I also did some work. John made up lattes, which I had with one of my scones.

The fall colors are here. I thought you might enjoy some of the views on my walk this afternoon.

Burning bushes have one of my favorite fall colors – the bright pink.

I love this bright orange of the maples as well:

So beautiful and only lasts for such a short time!

Dinner time was Mexican. We cooked up some ground beef with somespices, salsa, and a little chilis in adobo sauce (hot!). Served on corn tortillas with some cheddar cheese, more salsa and a bit of sour cream. Yum! Salsa counts as a veggie, right?

Note to self: Get light box out for pictures.

Football tonight and currently looking like I will be losing the picks for the week. Oh well, it was a good run while it lasted!

Pink item of the day. My cold weather jammies!

Fall ride and more cheese, please!

Happy Thursday! It was a really nice fall day today. I knew I had a bike ride planned for later after it warmed up, so I got up and made some warm brekkie and coffee.

This is Almond Joy Oats:

These tasted so good to me. I also burned my tongue on them because I was impatient. Ooops. 😳

I worked really hard this morning and was able to finish up one of my jobs by lunch time! I debated on what to have (while I nibbled on peanuts) and ended up with the tuna:

I checked in with the other job and it was really slow, so I figured I would get my ride in after lunch before the rains came. I had a quick snack:

Then went out for a 13-mile ride. My goal today was to have a relaxed ride and enjoy the colors. This was a ride along the canal. Join me, won’t you?

One of the signs the season is over:

Can you tell I was loving this ride today?

Sometimes is is just so nice to go out and not worry about how fast you are going or how far you are going and just enjoy the moment. My legs felt so good during this ride. Goes to show that lifting really can make you tired on a low level all week.

After I got back, John made lattes and I paired it with a balance bar:

And I had to get back to work… booooo….

We tried to register for the duathlon online and found out it was closed. It was supposed to be open through tomorrow – so I don’t know what is up with that. I hope they aren’t full (which would be really, really surprising). I have a message in to the Towpath people to make sure we can still register on race day, but have not heard back. We don’t want to show up early Sunday and find out we can’t register. Regardless of whether we do that specific duathlon or not, I am going to do the distance on my own this weekend if it is not open. I’ll keep you posted.

John cooked up some pork burgers for dinner with some Cabot cheese. Cabot sent me samples of a new cheese that will hopefully be in stores soon. These are new products and I am honored that they gave me samples before they hit the market! I love Cabot reduced fat cheese and this will be the new product:

Individual snack size. I am actually not that big on all the extra packaging material, but the nice thing is that these are portioned out (like string cheese), so a block of cheese won’t get all dried out. Not that we ever have that problem… There are non pepper flavors, too – I just love the heat!

All melty on my burger:

Cabot is really the only low fat cheese that melts and tastes good. I have been on the cheese wagon this week LOL!

Tonight is Project Runway and some quality time with John and the heat-seeking lap missile.

Pink item of the day:

Sunday, sunday

Chilly morning, but we decided to brave it and bike to breakfast to Panera and back. In the 40s, so we were pretty bundled up. It was a gorgeous ride, though. Some great foliage with dark skies behind.

Foliage

Felt good to get there and have some hot coffee with my blueberry bagel!

Panera Bread

I forgot my pink item yesterday in the long post. Here is today’s, and appropriate, I think!

pink1011

Definitely a beautiful fall day. I really hope next Sunday is like today. I don’t mind the cold, as long as it isn’t raining!

PA110007_edited

I just can’t get over the colors. They almost take your breath away when the light is just right.

Lots of work today to do, which is unusual for a holiday weekend. At least I am making money!

Took a break for lunch and had a nice tasting plate. This nectarine was a little dry, though.

lunch1011

Mutant baby carrot alert!

babyc

I tried another Holey donut for a snack this afternoon, one of the regular size ones and didn’t finish it. Too dry. I am really disappointed, I have to say. I wonder how the cinnamon rolls will be? I ended up getting an Attune bar instead and was much happier with the dark chocolate!

John and I did a quick and delicious stir fry tonight for dinner. We bought some Kikkoman reduced sodium teriyaki sauce and used a little sesame oil to sautee the chicken and some pineapple. Then I mixed in broccoli for me (surprised?) plus some couscous! Delicous and a nice filling portion. Yum! Throw together dinners can be the best.

dinner1011

My Broncos won today! Yay – 5 and 0! Woohoo. (I did lose picks, though….).

Had a good eating weekend, which feels great! I managed to avoid getting candy corn at the grocery store. That candy is one of my very favorites! I have to be very, very careful about bringing it into the house.

Question: Do you have a favorite Halloween treat?

Bike ride video and be a good egg!

Are you a good egg? Click to pledge that you are and help the hungry!

I did a switcheroo today like I did on Tuesday and worked out later in the day. So, I started off with a combo I have been thinking of for a while – mocha oats! Susan and I were on the same wavelength.

coffeeoats

40 grams oats
3/4 cup coffee
1 small banana
4 grams cocoa powder
10 grams chopped toasted pecans

I used the coffee in place of the water. This was very strong brewed coffee, too. It was a very unusual flavor, I have to say. I couldn’t taste the banana at all, just a bit of sweetness. It was eye opening!

My wonderful husband bought me some memory for my camera! I was talking about getting some because I can only take so many pictures and very short video with it. And then he said not to buy any because he got me some. Early Christmas gift for me!

memory

Isn’t technology amazing? 2 Gigabytes and the size of my fingernail.

Today was my hardest training day before taper week before the duathlon. I did a 1.5 mile run, then 16 mile bike ride, then 2 mile run.

As promised, here is a little bit of my bike path. It’s like my own Blair Witch Project LOL! I took so much video today, it was fun. This is just one piece.

I am such a nerd LOL. I feel like a bit of a goof. I held the camera in one hand while riding. Actually surprisingly steady for that.

It was the most gorgeous day today. So beautiful. I kept stopping to take pictures:

fallpath3

sumac-1

Stunning, just stunning. I wish I really could capture this on camera.

After the bike ride and before the 2nd run, I had some of this!

zico

Zico, would you sponsor me, please?? 😀 I love this stuff. It’s coming with me on duathlon day!

Pink picture of the day:

bands

This is a local laundromat. That color is on purpose LOL!

I felt really good when I finished. I did take more breaks riding that I should have, but I realized that I will be able to finish the duathlon. I know that now, and if I have to take a few breaks, it’s okay! I am getting excited and nervous about it. I can’t wait to see what kind of weather we will get next weekend. Mid October could be anything!

Question: Do you have fall photos to share? List the link, I would love to see!

Brick and TBL thoughts.

Don’t forget to check in with the challenge! I woke up wondering what the heck happened to me and then said, “Oh yeah, NROLW and the matrix”. Owie!!! I was super hungry and munched on a snack while I decided what to do.

snack

I decided that I felt okay enough to try a brick for duathlon training. It was a reverse from triathlon training, since the duathlon is run/bike/run. So I did a 2 mile jog first. My legs were complaining a bit at first, but after I warmed up they felt okay. I was going slower for sure. Then I jumped on my bike and did a 9 mile ride. It definitely felt different than doing bike/run. I have never gotten on the bike *after* running. I am not exactly sure how much of what I felt was the result of lifting yesterday versus the new order. It was definitely easier than going to running after biking, but I didn’t have a lot of push for hills. In fact, I kept the gear much lower than I normally ride in because it felt better.

Sign of fall – the Virginia Creeper is starting to turn!

leaves

Came back to my patented oats and blueberry sauce. Oats instead of oat bran today.

oats

I tried a new brand – Silver Palate, since I had a BOGO coupon. I really like these – they have more oaty flavor, plus nice and chewy. It’s a bit of a thicker cut of oatmeal.

Am I the only one that truly dislikes Biggest Loser? I have barely watched even a snippet of it, but the whole thing just bugs the crap out of me. I don’t like number competitions and the booting of people off who don’t lose the most. That just isn’t constructive, you know? These people lose incredible amounts of weight at each weigh in and seem so disappointed! Not to mention having a trainer in your face berating you when exercise is supposed to be enjoyable and something you will want to continue with forever. They sure don’t make it look like any fun. Maybe this is why the majority of the contestants gain weight back after the show. And does this really inspire everyday people to lose weight in a healthy manner? I ask this seriously and I hope someone will comment that it has helped them. I just think a lot of people imitate what they see on TBL and then quit because it is too intense and not enjoyable to keep up.

It’s called reality TV. However, it is anything but reality.

I tried something fun for lunch – adding PB2 to plain yogurt. It was really good! Made the yogurt really thick, though – check it out! Spackle anyone?

yogurt

I added some cereal on top of this for crunch. Will definitely be doing this again 😀

Had a latte and Special K bar for an afternoon snack.

latte P9130002

I was really hungry. I can’t quite get bars out of my life, even though I would like to. What I need to do is make more of my own. It’s not like I haven’t done that before LOL! I’m just lazy…..

Omelets for dinner! With feta cheese. I so love feta cheese in egg dishes (or on pizza). This was 1 egg with 2 servings of liquid egg white – makes good volume and protein for lower calories!

dinner

You can really tell fall is coming. Once the sun starts to set, it gets pretty brisk. We took the scooter out to Starbucks tonight – dang that was cold! Had to warm up with a yummy latte (it was decaf 😀 )

latte

Have a great night! I am going to try my hand at a Wordless Wednesday tomorrow. Should be fun!

Finding Radiance

Trying to live a fit life loving food, cycling, gardening and everything in between!