Wow, been almost a week since I was able to post. I blame it on Neil…he’s just been too darn busy hiking and taking all these pictures to open the laptop so I can post. His new Mountain Lion operating system for his MacBook Pro has this dictation thing that works perfectly for doing the text of the post; but my darn paws are just too clumsy to get the laptop open and type in the password. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Anyhoo; since my last posting on Sunday we’ve done plenty of hiking, searched high and low in NY for a barber shop since Neil was getting kinda of shaggy, had date nite, met the town drunk, had some pretty good beer and just generally been going all day.

Monday we headed off to the Borden Pond Preserve for our first hike. This was a nice hike through the woods featuring some small brooks and a very nice overlook of the valley from the top of the ridge. Total was about 2 miles but there was 300 or so feet of elevation change in the first .3 miles to get up most of the ridge.

After that we headed off to our second hike which was to be at Drowned Land Preserve. Unfortunately that hike lasted about 3 minutes as you almost needed a shotgun to ward off the flocks of mosquitos. After battling their way back to the car the adults asked themselves what to do next. Neil remembered that a neighbor in the park had suggested Bish Bash Falls nearby in MA. A quick google revealed that it was only about 5 miles from Drowned Land so away we go.

After first trying to go to the scenic overlook…which turned out to be more like rock climbing to get over to the edge of the gorge containing the falls only to be able to see…nothing; they headed down the trail toward the bottom of the falls. They quickly re-learned the first rule of hiking…always take your hiking sticks no matter how short the trail signs claim the trail is. This was a seriously steep climb down; over 300 feet in .3 miles and they really wished they had brought the sticks so as to make the footing better. Oh well, lesson learned. Eventually they got to the bottom and discovered a very nice falls about 160 feet or so tall into a nice pool. Big “No Swimming” signs all around so what do they see in the pool? Swimmers of course with nary a park ranger to run them off. No matter; the view was nice as you can see from the picture and short video below.

Here is a short movie of the Bish Bash Falls

After sitting for awhile at the falls they made the steep trek back up to the car and headed home. Very nice day although a bit tiring

Wednesday it was off to Olana; the home of (as the sign said) “Famous Hudson River Valley Landscape Artist Frederic Edwin Church”. Nobody in this family has ever heard of him but what they heck; it was a pretty nice house as you can see. What was really cool was the very irregular stonework the walls are made from as you can see in the closeup and the bench that Kara is sitting on.

They also searched high and low for a barber shop for Neil. Both of the ones close to the park in Red Hook and Rheinbeck were closed permanently. They found one on the way from Olana to the Shaker Museum but the guy said he had an appointment in 20 minutes and we would have to come back later even though the shop was empty. Heck with that…they headed down the road and about a mile away found a place named Sal’s Barber Shop…gotta be a good barber with a name like that. Sure enough (as proven by the 4 person waiting line) Sal was up to the task and 90 minutes they left with a fine trim. They continued on to the Shaker Museum (sorry, nothing worth taking a picture of there) and spent about an hour looking around before heading home for dinner.

I think I’ll stop here and post this in two parts so as to keep the upload size a little smaller…these picture and video intensive posts get big pretty quickly.

Cyas in a few.