Images of Letchworth State Park

Here are some more images from my day at Letchworth State Park with Ellen, Joseph, Amelia, and Thomas.
It was a beautiful autumn day, even though the leaves really have never become as vivid as I was hoping that they would be. It was quite impressive to watch a huge hot air balloon take off. I've never actually been so close to a hot air balloon in the past so that was a real treat.
At the park, there were people from a variety of places, even from overseas. I heard many different languages spoken. So, I hope that these pictures capture some of the feel for that day.

Letchworth State Park and getting turned loose

It has now been a month since I was released from the federal prison camp in Danbury, Conn. That was a bizarre experience, and I'll write more about it in a later post.
So... six months in the clink and then I was turned loose onto an unsuspecting world. Well, the government is blissfully unsuspecting. My dear friend and co-defendant Val Fillenwarth was sent to the big prison "down the hill," the low-security federal correctional institution, because she was perceived as being a "security risk." Maybe it's because she's a grandmother? For sure, I can't understand how this government functions.
So I've been re-adjusting to the "real world." The experience of being released from prison and of getting re-acclimated to life on the "outside" is very similar to the "reverse culture shock" that people get upon their return from an extended trip overseas. The change is very abrupt and very difficult.
Each day is a new beginning. Each day, I devote some time to rediscovering my world. I take long walks to enjoy the beauty of nature. I enjoy the simple things of life that were made so very difficult in prison... laundry, cutting fruits and vegetables for salads, picking apples from the tree. I like wearing bright colors and hats of all shapes and sizes. It is a pleasure to have cats around me again. I missed the cats so much when I was in prison.
I am still overwhelmed by traffic and by the massive variety of stuff in supermarkets.
I spend time with friends. They take me to good places. My friend Ellen and her three kids, Joseph, Amelia, and Thomas, took me to Letchworth State Park, near Warsaw, New York. Letchworth State Park has been described as the "Grand Canyon of the North." The Genesee River flows through it, in a deep gorge. There are three waterfalls, as high as 600 feet in some spots. In fact, in the past, I've done some white water rafting in Letchworth State Park. That was exciting and fun and, during one trip, I was in a raft that capsized, resulting in my doing both white water rafting and swimming. But that's another story.
On October 14, the day that we went to Letchworth State Park, we were all busy drawing and painting when we saw a huge hot air balloon take off. That was quite a sight. Many people watched as the balloon floated over the waterfalls and then went higher in the sky and was gone. I took many pictures of the balloon and of the waterfalls and of other sights at Letchworth State Park.
For more information about Letchworth State Park, take a look at http://www.nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/info.asp?parkID=12

Late winter walk

On Tuesday, March 13, I walked down the bike path to Beaver Island State Park. It was the first time that I had been on the bike path since early in January, before the arctic air blew in for an extended stay.
I had been hoping that I would have one more chance to explore my outdoor world before I turned myself in at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, to begin my six-month sentence for crossing the fence at Fort Benning.
The frozen wasteland that I viewed from the window had been saying no, you're not going to explore your outdoor world without risk of frostbite or hypothermia or both.
But, on Tuesday, the temperatures soared to close to 60 degrees.
Joy filled me as I started down the bike path. I walked under the bridges that link Grand Island to Tonawanda. The wind blew, but that didn't bother me. It was warm and I was outside.
I could see the damage that the "October surprise" storm had on the trees. It was apparent where the branches had been torn from the trees by the weight of the heavy snow that had fallen on October 12 and October 13, when the branches were already heavily laden by leaves. I saw the gaping holes where the branches had been. Other branches hung onto the tree trunks but just barely.
People and dogs walked and jogged past me. All seemed joyful that they were able to get outside and that they were able to enjoy the bike path again.

emptiness

I was fascinated by this hollowed-out log and had to take a picture.

Shaking off cabin fever

I continued walking down the bike path. Some of it was still covered in snow. In the warm sunlight, the snow rapidly turned into mush. I stomped through puddles. The wind hit me on the left and on the right, and the water stirred in the puddles. I saw water bubbling out of its ice cover. People and dogs trotted past me, happy for the warmth and for the chance to shake off their cabin fever.

branches

Cold water, broken twigs, fallen tree... images of a late winter thaw...

Caterpillers

This caterpiller added color to a bleak background and offered hope of more color yet to come.

more trees

The naked trees of winter have a beauty of their own. Their beauty is in their shape. Some trees appear very geometrical, with their branches headed off in different directions. Other trees appear more rounded. The bumps and lumps and holes in the trunks are more noticeable now.

no one home yet

Another image of the starkness of winter...

no boats yet

This is the pier at Beaver Island State Park, still clogged with ice. It was near this pier that I met a man who had ice fishing gear in his vehicle. He was ready to go on the ice. He took a large, pointed stick and poked at the ice to determine how solid it was. Some of it was solid, but, at places not far from the solid spots, the ice was already starting to turn to mush in the warm air.
When I left the pier and got on the boardwalk at the beach, I saw a man who was dressed from head to toe in waterproof gear walking on the beach. He pushed a metal detector device in one hand and he held some sort of collector in his other hand. Apparently, he was searching for coins or some other sort of treasure. He seemed very intent on his task. A dog was frolicking not too far away. His human had to call several time before the dog returned to join the human and another dog.

great book!

Adams vs. Jefferson, by John Ferling, is an interesting book that took me all of about three days to read. It is about the hotly contested election of 1800 and the events that led up to it. Although the book is factual and historical, it is as exciting as a mystery.
The two main characters in the book are John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They had little in common. Their lifestyles and their views of the world clashed. The one thing that they had in common was that they were trying to create a nation where none had existed. They were trying to invent a government that was new and different from the British monarchy that each had rejected.
What this book makes clear is that American democracy seemed to be doomed from the start to failure. When the U.S. constitution was enacted, a large percentage of the population was disenfranchised, including black people and women.
The book also addresses the issues of slavery, which, in 1800, was legal in nearly every state in the union.
It became clear to me, when I read this book, that many of the problems facing the U.S. government today are nothing new. For example, the Patriot Act is far from being the first law to limit the freedoms of Americans. in the 1790s, President John Adams managed to get an alien and sedition act through Congress. This legislation banned newspapers from insulting the president, among other things. Unprovoked wars, also, are nothing new. George W. Bush's war against Iraq is another example of how he is following directly in the footsteps of John Adams. John Ferling goes into some detail about a scandal called the XYZ affair and how that almost led the United States into an unprovoked attack on France. Apparently, the information that John Adams received that encouraged him to push for this pre-emptive assault was nothing but lies, sort of like the information that George W. Bush received about the so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In the 1790s, however, Congress was not quite as willing to play along with the president. John Adams asked for a declaration of war against France, and Congress refused to do so. George Bush got Congress to "authorize force," but he never asked for a declaration of war.
Other interesting characters in the book include George Washington, James Madison, Abigail Adams, and Aaron Burr.
This well-documented book is written in an easily accessible style. The founding fathers of the United States are depicted as real people who are very much like any of the governmental leaders of today.
This is a great book! Read it if you get a chance.

Hannah

This is little Hannah. She is the daughter of my friends Gabe and Kristen and the granddaughter of my friends Joe and Marie. Last summer, I crocheted a blanket to welcome her into the world.
She didn't really need the blanket during the summer, though. It was already toasty warm without a heavy purple and pink blanket. So I took the blanket to the "America's Fair" and won an honorable mention ribbon for it.
In the fall, I gave the blanket to Grandma Marie, and she brought it to Hannah's mom and dad in Virginia.
Just recently, I was sent some pictures of Hannah playing on the blanket. As you can see from these pictures, Hannah loves her books and her toys. She is well dressed for the occasion, as she matches her blanket quite nicely.

Upside down books

The world of literature looks a little bit different when seen upside down.