Back To The Old Grind

I went to the Marriott this morning to blow more leaves for the big-wigs arrival and, after two hours, it didn't look like I did anything, so many more leaves were falling... so I gave up.  I went over and bought two new timers for my Aunt's outside lights and hooked them up... I haven't heard anything from her, so I'm assuming they worked.  Then, I applied three cans of undercoating to Terry's underbelly, getting her ready for winter's salty fury.

I decided to head north about an hour, near Slippery Rock, PA, hoping to get a glimpse of some of the autumnal (I know, fancy word, huh?) coloring.  There's an outlet mall up there that I like to go to and one of my favorite places on earth... McConnell's Mill.  Situated right along a strong-flowing creek, it was once used as a grist mill, grinding corn and the like.  Now, with it's covered bridge and historical mill, it makes for a beautiful centerpiece of the state park it's in.  With the large, smooth rocks that are all around, it's surely a dumping site for some glacier... the only logical explanation.  Some of the rocks have 30 foot drops and rock wall climbers scale them.  You can climb down through them, winding through close spaces in the crags between them.  On the last few pictures, you can't really get a good sense of the height, but it's also interesting that, over time, dirt settled on top of the rocks and trees grew and wrapped their roots right around the rocks.  Double click and again on any pic for the large version.  The new blog heading picture was from today as well.

My friend Gary went with me and we had a great time.  It was the perfect ending to Indian Summer.