Fall has arrived...

My last post may have been a little tedious, so I'll try to keep this shorter and on the lighter side. Since it's fall, two things are happening that I really love - the leaves are changing and the apple orchards are beginning to provide one of the most delicious foods ever created. On Monday of this week Sara and I took a trip over to Peru, NY to pick apples. Much to our surprise nobody else was at the orchard when we arrived and it stayed that way. We ended up meandering through several acres of trees tasting and picking at will until we had filled our two half-bushel baskets. We picked several varieties of apples including Macintosh, Cortland, Golden Delicious, Gala and Honeycrisp and I think I ate at least two of each kind while we picked. You're probably thinking that a bushel of apples is a whole lot and that's correct. However, you've probably never seen Sara or me put away apples. I must point out that fresh-picked apples go down so much easier than the often two-year old, wax-covered apples you'll find at the store. In my 'expert' opinion, eating three fresh apples is actually much easier than eating one apple from the store.

If you've looked at the picture below you're probably wondering why anybody in their right mind would be carrying a jar of peanut butter in an apple orchard. Let's just say that there are few things more delicious than slathering a big spoonful of all-natural peanut butter onto an apple that is still on the tree and then picking said apple and quickly devouring it. If you've never tried it, I suggest you do the next time you find yourself in an orchard. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Because our training schedule this week only called for around 9 hours, that left lots of time for taking pictures and enjoying the fall colors. On Tuesday Sara and I hiked about a mile in to a lake near Whiteface Mountain. We built a raging fire and then ate dinner while the sun went down, casting soft light on the hillsides. Sunset and sunrise really bring out the best in fall colors.

Thursday morning we did a run up Cobble Hill, a small mountain that overlooks Lake Placid. There are few places to get an unobstructed view of the town so it was fun to get a better idea of how everything fits together.
This last picture is something I snapped on the edge of one of the highways. Shrouded in haze as they were, the ski jumps reminded me of some sort of giant Star Wars era machines rather than something feather-weight kids use to pretend they are Superman. But what do I know?