Seeing new sights on an extra day

Gawking at sculptures, getting lost, spotting a beautiful bird

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I mistakenly put up my Sunday column on Saturday this week. When I sent Ken a text about it, he replied that I really am retired.

He also suggested I should write another column for today. Joking, I think.

Instead, I’ll take the opportunity to post a few photos from the rest of the busy Saturday Bella and I and Ringo had.

First was a trip to the sculpture garden at Salem Art Works, where sculptures are scattered up the side of long, steep hill. You could walk up, if you’re feeling ambitious, but we drove, with the excuse that it was a chilly, misty, drizzly day. We could see out over the valley from the top, and on a beautiful blue clear day, it must be stunning.

Here is a shot from the top:

I’m sure the red-orange beams are part of a sculpture and assume the rocks in a circle do not have a practical function but are also meant to be appreciated aesthetically. I’m guessing the hole in the middle doesn’t go down far, although I didn’t check.

Several of the sculptures, but this one especially, gave me a Stonehenge-like feeling.

It stands alone between earth and sky.

Aliens left these behind.

Above the river

Then, in the afternoon, we found another of Queensbury Land Conservancy’s delightfully obscure parks, Leon M. Steves Big Bay Preserve, at the dead end of Division Road, off Corinth Road. We followed the yellow trail, got lost, but found our way back to the car with the help of my phone. What did we do before GPS!

The trails are wide and let in a lot of light at the Big Bay Preserve, and you can walk on a bank above the Hudson River and gaze down steeper banks that form a cleft in the land, with Clendon Brook bubbling along at the bottom.

Beautiful heron

Also, a couple of days ago, when we were walking around Hovey Pond, Ringo scrambled off the trail, into the brush on the bank of the pond, as if he’d spotted a squirrel. I yanked him back but couldn’t see what had drawn his slavering attention.

When we got around to the side of the pond, however, I looked back and saw this beautiful heron standing unruffled in the water at the pond’s edge:

Usually, the iPhone camera is up to the task, no matter what I’m trying to photograph. But, in this case, I couldn’t get too close, because I was worried about spooking the heron, and I really needed a long lens to do the bird justice.