Autumn in the Northeast has its particular look and feel, but it comes quite a bit earlier to the North Country than to elsewhere. Canton, New York is looking its most charming and just over the horizon, Ontario, CA is doing the same.
Fall Leaves
As much as I liked to joke that the Bay Area only had a single season, I have to admit that if you looked for it you could find fall.
Previously Everyday
The intersection of Hearst and Euclid was an everyday sight (and site for lunch) during graduate school. Just as daytime settings become otherworldly by night, chronological distance from those days have made the setting alien and exciting. How could this place ever have seemed normal?
North Country Territory
My background as a chemist, rather than a biologist, is most apparent when words to describe my environment fail me. I can discuss fall colors and grassy areas near streams, and I understand the molecules involved in producing both structures at the microscopic level, but I’m bereft of the ability to precisely identify the transition occurring here.
Dawn at the Barn
The Sun rises over the Adirondack foothills and St. Lawrence’s Elsa Gunnison Appleton Riding Hall. I was up early to fly the Phantom for a very particular reason: This weekend marks Derby Day, the completion of the 2016 St. Lawrence Summer Horse Show Series. Spectacular riding is on tap for Saturday!
Oysters
Such a quintessentially northwest scene: the intrepid few scouring a rocky beach on Hood Canal on an overcast day in the summer looking for shellfish. A little slice of heaven.
Club Sports
After classes end for the day, there’s still an astonishing amount of activity on St. Lawrence’s campus. My favorite detail about this picture (other than its, “Hey, I can see my house from here!” vibe) is the chapel tower sneaking over the horizon. It’s mirrored on either side by a water tower and a cell tower that are, uh, a bit less dramatic.
Light Pollution Sucks
I’m amazed at what I can capture with my camera, especially given that I can’t see this with my naked eyes. Still, I wish that I didn’t have to contend with the bright lights of even a small town.
Ripples from Rotors
Cabins and homesteads have accompanied the Grasse River through the North Country for hundreds of years. Photographing those structures from a GPS-stabilized quadcopter hovering a meter off the water’s surface? That’s kind of new.
Saturday Afternoon on the Pier
Spending an afternoon on the pier in Pacifica, CA is as good a time as any. Crab fishing has its varied sets of tools and techniques, but the experience to me has been about more than that. Cooking on a portable hibachi and getting crusty with salt spray is the real core of the process.
Golden Coast
Feeling nostalgic.
Resilient Tree at Sunset
Of all the plant phyla, I’ve always felt a particular affinity for the conifers. Those spiny softwood survivors have a diverse yet particular set of aromatic compounds that accompany them; I can chart a lot of happy memories to pine or cypress groves and their applied organic chemistry. Starting on the east coast, through the midwest, and finding myself in grad school on the west coast meant contact with a lot of different species. These ocean-wind-sculpted examples from Pacifica, California are particularly dramatic.
Johnson Hall and Beyond
Johnson Hall at sunset in the North Country. No other comment needed.
Appleton on the Grasse
The DJI Phantom 3 quadcopter is giving me a new appreciation for Canton’s “small town America” landmarks, like the Appleton Arena. The way oblique solar rays reflect from its arcing roof puts the ice rink and the Grasse River in a reflective class of their own; nothing else in town is reflecting the sunset in the same way. Perhaps it’s appropriate that the ice rink and the flowing river, both full of water (though covered, in Appleton’s case) are the most reflective moieties.
The Rush II
I was surprised when I found that I had already named a file in this directory “The Rush.” I guess there was something about the water around here that really said “rushing” to me.
Decaseconds 