Adirondack Fall

Having travelled up to Vermont to see the fall foliage, it was now the turn of New York State. The plan was to head north up the I87 Northway and then pick up Route 28 just north of Lake George and follow it and the Hudson River across through North Creek to Indian Lake and then turn south on Route 30 to return following the Sacandaga River to Sacandaga Lake then Amsterdam and back to home. The route is designated as one of New York’s scenic byways. The weather started out very overcast with a few drops of rain now and then but later it cleared and the fall colours showed their beauty. Heading back the light started to go and gave a nice shot of the Sacandaga River thought the trees. 

Banks of the Hudson River

Unknown Lake on Route 28

Sun going down on the Sacandaga River

North Creek is a small town north of Lake George and it's claim to fame is that it is the home of the Saratoga & North Creek Railway. North Creek Railroad Station is a historic railroad station built in 1874. It was built as the northern terminus of the Adirondack Railway. It is the place where Theodore Roosevelt learned of the assassination of President William McKinley and of his accession to the Presidency of the United States. During World War II, magnetite, ilmenite, and titanium were shipped by rail from Tahawus by the Delaware and Hudson Railway who acquired the Adirondack Line from William West Durant in 1889. It ran through this region until September 1989 when the mine at Tahawus closed. The rocks in the area are also known for their garnets.


In 1998, the line was purchased by Warren County with plans to operate an excursion train to improve tourism and economic development in the area. In 1999, the Upper Hudson River Railroad began operating excursion trains south from North Creek to Riverside Station in Riparius. The Upper Hudson River Railroad lost their contract with Warren County on December 31, 2010, ending 11 years of operation. On April 8, 2011, it was announced that Iowa Pacific Holdings would take over operation of the route effective July 1, 2011. As part of the agreement, the Iowa Pacific agreed to operate a minimum of 182 tourist-oriented passenger trains over the line. Iowa Pacific began operating trains on July 14, 2011 as the Saratoga and North Creek Railroad. Unlike the Upper Hudson River Railroad, which ran the short distance to Riparius, the Saratoga and North Creek now operates over the entire 57-mile between Saratoga Springs and North Creek. North of North Creek the line is still abandoned and over grown as it runs along route 28 and the Hudson River.

North Creek Station

Saratoga & North Creek Railroad
http://www.sncrr.com

Fairies, photos and folk music

Sitting here touching up some wedding photos from the other weekend, made me thing how easy it is to alter things in this day and age. When I first started in photography techniques like burning and dodging as well as sandwiching negatives were common and to some, altering a photo and then re-taking it. All these required skill in the darkroom or a good eye as an artist. They say the camera cannot lie (although with some modern cameras that is not true today) but Photoshop can. Even so, I thought about one of the best camera tricks known, the Cottingley Fairies.

The Cottingley Fairies

In 1917, two Yorkshire girls, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths even managed to fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creator of super sleuth Sherlock Holmes, into believing they had photographed fairies at the bottom of their garden. Frances explained, "The first time I ever saw anything was when a willow leaf started shaking violently, even though there was no wind, I saw a small man standing on a branch, with the stem of the leaf in his hand, which he seemed to be shaking at something. He was dressed all in green..... They were real fairies. Some had wings and some not…. They were once sitting in a patch of sunlight on a low bank…. It all seemed so peaceful and friendly…. Sometimes they came up, only inches away, but I never wanted to join in their lives." The hoax wasn’t explained until 1982, when the pair finally admitted to photographing paper cut-outs supported by hat-pins. The Cottingley Fairies photographs fetched £6,000 at auction earlier this year, surely an indication that people still wish to believe in them. These days with Photoshop and similar software the creation of these abstract possibly believable images is easy if not something for experienced users.

Photoshop fairy

Even J R R Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings, had a love affair with fairies and in his paper “On Fairy Stories” he wrote:

Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied, unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. For it is man who is, in contrast to fairies, supernatural (and often of diminutive stature); whereas they are natural, far more natural than he. Such is their doom. The road to fairyland is not the road to Heaven; nor even to Hell, I believe, though some have held that it may lead thither indirectly by the Devil's tithe.

O see ye not yon narrow road

So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?

That is the path of Righteousness,

Though after it but few inquires.

And see ye not yon braid, braid road

That lies across the lily leven?

That is the path of Wickedness,

Though some call it the Road to Heaven.

And see ye not yon bonny road

That winds about yon fernie brae?

That is the road to fair Elfland,

Where thou and I this night maun gae.

I recognized these as the words used by the English folk rock group Steeleye Span in their song Thomas the Rhymer recorded in 1974, so looking a little deeper I found that it was Child Ballad 37 - The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. The collection was published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads between 1882 and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in 10 volumes.

Thomas himself was born Thomas Learmonth (c. 1220 – c. 1298) better known as Thomas the Rhymer or True Thomas and was a 13th century Scottish laird and reputed prophet from Earlston (then called "Erceldoune"). He is the protagonist of the ballad. He is also the probable source of the legend of Tam Lin. Popular esteem of Thomas lived on for centuries after his death, to the extent that several people have fabricated Thomas' "prophecies" in order to further the cause of Scottish independence. His reputation for supernatural powers for a time rivalled that of Merlin.

Thomas meets the Queen of the Fairies

All this might have been if  Sir Thomas of Erceldoune had been no more historical than Merlin. But the name is known to have belonged to a real person. Thomas Rymor de Ercildune is witness to a deed whereby one Petrus de Haga obliges himself to make payment to the Abbey of Melrose. Petrus de Haga is, in turn, witness to a charter made by Richard de Moreville. Unluckily, neither of these deeds is dated. But Moreville was constable of Scotland from 1162 to 1189. If we suppose Moreville's charter to have been given towards 1189, and Haga to have been then about twenty years old, and so born about 1170, and further suppose Haga to have made his grant to Melrose towards the end of a life of threescore, or three score and ten, the time of Thomas Rymer's signature would be about 1230 or 1240. If Thomas Rymer was then twenty years of age, his birth would have been at 1210 or 1220.

It never ceases to amaze me how one can jump from Photoshop and wedding photographs to folk music and the mystical worlds of fairies and elves, as some say everything is intertwined and the circle becomes complete.

J R R Tolkien – On Fairy Stories

http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf

Credit for the Photoshop Image

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/?FeatureID=1604

Credit for Thomas picture

http://www.scotclans.com/bletherskite/?p=909

Vermont Road Trip

This weekend was the Columbus Day holiday here in the States so time to get out and about especially with the trees turning into their fall colours. The Vermont State website suggested some routes which were in areas of peak or near peak colour so I planned to go up the Interstate to Rutland, Vermont about 100 miles north east of Albany and then cut across the Green Mountains doing a loop on the east side coming back down to Bennington and from there home. We got to Rutland and made a detour to visit the Mountain Top Tavern and Resort, just north of the town. The resoprt is on the shores of Chittenden Reservoir. Today it was busy with plenty of people out in canoes or just lazing around the beach area. The day was beautiful, the sky was blue and the temperature soared up to 85F (almost 30C). At the beach, I was amazed to see some women sunbathing in bikinis in the middle of October ! After lunch by the lake we headed east on the Vermont route 73 only to find it closed, the damage caused by hurricane Irene had still not been repaired.

Chittenden Reservoir

Vermont is an odd state; it is a state of two halves east and west with the Green Mountains running up the middle. There are only a few roads that run east – west and with this one being closed the only options were to drive 70 miles north or go down to Bennington and come back up, both these options would mean an additional 150 or so miles and several hours of travel so I decided to head north on the 53, following the shore of Lake Dunmore to pick up Route 7 and then head back down to Bennington.

Along Vermont Route 7

At Manchester we took the more scenic Historic Route 7, the predecessor of the modern highway Route 7. As I approached Bennington, I decided to take a back road back to New York and follow the Battenkill River to Hoosick and then pick up NY Route 7 back to Albany. The route numbers here confuse many, Vermont Rt7 continues in to Massachusetts changing to Mass Rt7 eventually ending up at Lee, while the NY Rt7 heads off the Vermont Rt7 at Bennington and back to Albany. It’s common to see cars pulled over with drivers pouring over maps trying to decide which route 7 they actually need.

The Battenkill River

The trees were good but not quite yet at peak in the southern half of Vermont, the turning comes south over the next couple of weeks so still a chance to get up in to the Adirondacks and Catskill Mountains to capture the brilliance of the Maples as they change to their fall coat of reds and oranges.