photographed by Adrian and Gill Smith
Starting in the Adirondacks in good time for the fall colours. Minnowbrook is Syracuse Universitys field station and is a great place to hang out with a bunch of languages nerds and talk memory management late into the night. Or just get a reputation as a Shuffleboard shark, and rediscover the joys of paddling canoes indian-style!
Morning mist over Blue Mountain Lake. The first few days it was really chilly in the mornings, which was great as it triggered the cherries and maples to start turning. | ![]() |
Wynn and Richard at the lakeside. Roy Sykes came with Wynn and Kate who did a great job herding the delegates back indoors when the time came. | ![]() |
Morning break outside the classroom. Yes, life was tough. Really. | ![]() |
Moonset over the lake during the evening session. Should have borrowed a tripod, but found a pole I could balance on for just long enough to get the reflection. | ![]() |
Reflections at dawn on the second day. Yes, its a lake, with trees reflected in it. After a while you get blasé about these things and stop clicking away! | ![]() |
Perched boulder stereo pair. See Richard if you can't make this work for you. | ![]() |
View from Castle Rock with trees beginning to turn. Lots of these too! The colour of the landscape changed quite dramatically while we were there. | ![]() |
Floatplane landing on Blue Mountain Lake. Half the delegates took the plane ride, while we mountain goats took the walk up Castle Rock. The plane waved its wings at us tho, which was nearly as good. | ![]() |
Cabin at Blue Mountain Rest. This was the bigger cabin where the Dyalog crew hung out. Thanks to Gitte for endless pancakes at breakfast, and to Dan for his effortless mastery of the barbecue. | ![]() |
Detail of leaves from the deck. Just a great place to mooch about and get the smoke and mirrors lined up for Princeton (see below). | ![]() |
Blue Mountain spider. About an inch across and very hard to see until it moved. | ![]() |
Red Maple leaves on the path to Blue Mountain. More arty farty stuff to enjoy! | ![]() |
Chipmunk caching the winter food supply. As always, the trick is to follow the target for long enough that it gets bored and ignores you. Not sure what it was hiding - probably haycorns. | ![]() |
Blue Mountain with cabin and Mazda5. Our little hutch and a plug for the Mazda people. This car was actually a pleasure to drive, even up hills and around corners. Beats most of the US built stuff we have had over the years. Except the Ford Probe back in 1991, and I suspect Mazda built that for them! | ![]() |
Lake Durant. Trees keep on turning! | ![]() |
Cascade Pond. And the water gets bluer by the day! | ![]() |
Newt in Cascade Pond. Nuff said. | ![]() |
Castle Rock 2 days later. The short route to the top this time as a pre-dinner scramble. | ![]() |
The Minnowbrook Shuffle. This table was really skilful - fast and fair and 20ft long. Richard & I were never beaten as a team, but there were some pretty close calls. | ![]() |
Dragonfly resting - Aeshna umbrosa. Wingspan over 4". See it in flight in the Tertiary later on :-} | ![]() |
Wilsons Pond. Yup, those trees are getting redder and the water is still blue! | ![]() |
Our hired Grumman on Osprey Island. Paddling muscles were well used against a stiff breeze and a fair lop on the lake. Nice to pull off on an island and watch the world go by. | ![]() |
Floating Maple leaf. Oh yes, there is arty farty stuff here too! | ![]() |
Moving on to the New England coast, we ignored the shopping opportunities in New York, in favour of some light dinosaur spotting and a bit of serious loafing on the beach.
Finally, having thrown Gill out of the car at Newark Terminal C, Adrian and Richard carried on to Princeton for a bit more work and another chance to clean up at Shuffleboard.
The timing of this conference pairing was a bit fortunate, but perfect for us. Maybe we will get a re-run in 2 years time! Lets hope so.