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In Buffalo, the eclipse was simultaneously an astonishingly powerful and deeply disappointing experience. Clouds were in the forecast all along, but for the last several days, local meteorologists were constantly offering up reasons for optimism…which turned to “Sorry, we’re not clearing out until after totality, bummer, but it’ll still get dark and stuff.” I know these folks don’t control the weather, but for all the technology and scientific expertise they have, it sometimes seems that their ability to offer up any kind of reliable forecast has been whittled down to timeframes measured in hours, or even minutes. I know someDown the rabbit hole….

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Photos from a short walk at the Orchard Park Railroad Depot yesterday. The Depot, you may remember, has been lovingly restored after years of neglect after the trains stopped running, and the tracks are now a rail trail. These weren’t the only photos I took! I actually took a bunch, but of those only these were the real keepers; some others were actually practice photos I really don’t intend to do much with. I was using a new ND filter that stops a ton of light, and I used it to practice a bit of shutter-speed work as well as aDown the rabbit hole….

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In: Fashion, Life, On Bib Overalls, On Buffalo and The 716, On Dogs and Dog Life, On Nature, Photographic Documentation
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For the first time since Cane died last September, I went hiking at Chestnut Ridge Park yesterday. Chestnut Ridge is an old park whose development by Erie County began back in the late 1920s, and a lot of the park’s original infrastructure, quite a bit of which still stands, was built by work crews of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Chestnut Ridge is a very large park–at more than 1100 acres, it is 300 acres larger than New York City’s Central Park–and it covers a lot of rugged terrain, ranging from forested hills to steep gorges throughDown the rabbit hole….

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Today we took a fall train ride. There’s a train that does scenic rides out of the depot in Hamburg, NY. We did this a year ago and greatly enjoyed it, so we did it again today. It’s an out-and-back ride, covering maybe twenty miles out and twenty back, or maybe less; the train slows way down when going over two trestles that cross the two branches of Eighteen Mile Creek, mainly so people on board can go Ooooh and Aaaaah and take pictures. First, when going on a train ride, one dresses appropriately. Bring on the hickory stripes! It was also coolDown the rabbit hole….

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Our summers often pivot on two fairs: the Sterling Renaissance Festival, and the Erie County Fair, which we attended on Friday the 12th. (I would have posted about it sooner, but then that dumbassed virus showed up and put its feet on the furniture and drank from coasterless glasses and got crumbs over everything and was basically just a big asshole.) While The Wife was unable to attend Sterling because of her recent foot surgery, she was able to attend the County Fair, by virtue of a day-long scooter rental. This year we were graced with probably the most perfect weatherDown the rabbit hole….

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One of the things that sticks in my memory most strongly from our trip last December to Oahu is the rainbows. Every day, at least one rainbow. It just became this thing I did every morning: Get up, make the coffee, go out to our balcony, look off to the right, and see a rainbow. I even saw my first moonbow there. Western New York is not nearly so prolific in the rainbow department. But the other night, our WNY skies put on a show. A series of thunderstorms rolled in from Lake Erie, and in their wake, the sunlight did itsDown the rabbit hole….

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…or home-that-was. This photo was shared on a Facebook group I follow, called “Olean NY: Memories in Time”, which is just that: memories of the Olean, NY region through the years. This is a photo taken by drone from the top of what is locally called “Rock City Hill”, the high mountaintop just south of Olean, and one of the highest points in the region. This view is northwest, toward the village of Allegany, where I grew up. My issues with the region aside, New York’s Southern Tier is a hauntingly beautiful place. I don’t exactly miss it, but…I do missDown the rabbit hole….

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A lovely post about autumn, over at Nerdishly: Punctuated by long nights and scented by benign smoke and wet leaves, the period between first frost and December is my favorite part of the year. The furnace is pressed into service by 5 a.m., and I, now be-sweatered and -socked from rising until bedtime, begin yawning before 6:45 p.m., but the rest is a sort of everyday magic, from the perfect circles bored into the pumpkins by what I imagine to be a stout but agreeable-enough nocturnal animal to the prehistoric trumpeting of the sandhill cranes as they gather in ever-wideningDown the rabbit hole….

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 This weekend The Wife and I spent a bit of time driving on US 20A, from Orchard Park to Perry Center, where we hung a right for a day trip to Letchworth State Park. After Letchworth we went to Avon, NY where there’s a good pizza place we like (they also do gluten-free!), and then we drove home, traveling south from Avon to Geneseo and then back home on 20A again. US 20A is one of my favorite drives for a number of reasons, all of which boil down to that it’s just a beautiful road to drive, with itsDown the rabbit hole….

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 First things first: it’s not a bridge. Also, I am quite literally the only person who calls it the Dumas Bridge. Let’s back up. One of my favorite locations for nature walks in my neck o’ the woods is Knox Farm State Park. This park is located in East Aurora, NY, and it constitutes the house, stables, farm buildings, and grounds of the old Knox Estate. The Knox family was, for a time, one of the richest families in the region (if not the richest family in the region). Seymour Knox was one of the founders of the famed Woolworth Company,Down the rabbit hole….