Joys Study

Here are some photos of the many creatures i saw on vacation! (sorry i havent posted in so long!)

Here are some more beautiful pictures of Katerskill Falls. I finally got to editing them today! Pretty eh? I hope to go back one day when its not as dry and the falls are bigger.

Well one of the many little creatures and or animals I chased that week on vacation was this nice frog! After catching him about 10  times i finally got him in some nice photographic positions. I love the end result! Isnt it so cute!

Finally here is the story.

So Sunday (July 13th) afternoon we packed the car and drove on up to East Duram NY. We were to tired that night to do anything so we just hung around the resort like we did most nights in the pub. Yes being an Irish place there are bars all about the town! But it is a family oriented place too. Any who we had dinner that night and every night in the dinning hall and then hung around.

Monday morning we went to breakfast and then decided to go to Howe Caverns. That was a really cool cave. I took many pictures there (as most places i went) though you will only see a few in this post. Then we got back to the resort for dinner and that night we went to a concert. Unfortunately the venders were in the same area as the performers so the RUDE people talking over powered some of the music but other then that it was nice.

Tuesday we got out the hiking gear (sandles and sneakers and nice sturdy sticks that we ended up not using) and headed off to Katerskill Falls! Obviously a nice water fall! It was unfortunately a dry time of the year so it wasnt as HUGE and marvelous as we saw in pictures. Then Tuesday night was firework night at the resort. So we hung out by the poolside and waited for the show and marshmallow roast (I listened to my music and talked on the phone with a few people You all know who you are lol) Then once it was over we went to the pub for a jam session. Now mind you every night after the concerts allll the students (they had classes up there that particular week) would gather in various pubs around the town and jam their heart out. That was the coolest thing about it. However the Irish people are very clanish too they stick to their own. So few were very friendly!

Wednesday I went on a trail ride. with others at our resort. (It was free. Cool huh?) My poor large horse though had many flies on him. So he decided to take me for little side track into the rose bushes to get them off. Silly i not wearing pants got my left leg all scratched up! It was an adventure! lol I found it very amusing but i felt bad for the horse. His or her name was Bell by the way! (not sure with that name you cant really tell weather its a girl or a guy but probably was a girl) Any way after that we went on a ride to Windom to see the five state lookout. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day so we could not see as far as we would be able to on a clearer day. The town of Windom is rather deserted so there wasnt much to do there. So we returned to the resort for dinner and yet again hung out in the Pub for another session.

Thursday we had to go back home to get my moms 2nd check for more spending money. Before we did that though we went canoing at Southlake and Northlake. We spent most of the time chasing after dragonflies and lily photographs. Also a funny thing happened. There was a dear eating in the lake around the lily pads. We got really close to him or her and it didnt even care. So i was able to take lots of shots of that. Then we finally left and drove home to get moms check and back up for dinner that night and we went to another concert then rushed back to the resorts pub for a mascaraed party. Unfortunately only a few people dressed up mostly kids. We had our nice costumes though and we pranced in there all hip with them on! We shore stood out! That was also karaoke night and we got to listen to some not TO bad singers sing mostly the hit songs of today (no Irish this time) I almost got up there myself but I didnt know one particular song well enough! I almost sang a Beatles song actually! "In My Life" is its name, good song! Moving on…

Friday was check out of the resort day so we packed up and then went on the resorts hiking trail for campers and so on. (The Blackthorns resort owns a LOT of land they have campgrounds too.) Then we went to ZoomFlume (a water park) I have no pictures of that but that was fun! I love going head first on them slides and getting water up my nose at the end! It makes me feel dangerous! lol After that we went to a Mexican restaurant that was ONE GOOD BURRITO! Man they had all sorts of sauces and flavors going on in that thing. It was so good and so was the chips and salsa! Mexican Radio (the name of the place) deserves its top rating it is a good restaurant. Then we went to a Dance session and then to a singing session then finally HOME! We got home 1 that night.

So both Friday night and Saturday night we slept at our home and drove back up. Saturday we went to a few places before heading to the big concert festival thing. We took a tour of Thomas Cole’s house. He was the founder of a painters school in the Hudson Valley. He painted several paintings based on the scenery of the Hudson valley. He was a outdoor man and hiked a lot and sketched and painted what he saw on his hikes. He had a philosophy in his painting. He would take bits and pieces of scenes and put them together into one painting to make for a more interesting piece. He also said that it was better to put a warm base when painting things like lakes and the sky and such so that when the piece was done it wouldn’t be to cold looking. Very interesting eh? He was also a very "religious" man as they say. We also went to look at Olana. The house of Thomas Cole’s student Fredrick Church. We only went to look at the scenery we have yet to take the tour but we will one of these days. Finally we headed to the festival after making a few stops in some gifts shops. In that process i lost my cell phone. I was so upset! After the concert we went to another pub for one last Jam session and then off home we went…. with out my cell phone mind you!

The next morning (Sunday 20th of July) just before we tried calling where I THOUGHT I had lost my phone dad called us. Funny thing happened. Then again kinda scary. Dad thought we had been lost since Friday! Because we forgot to tell him we were checking out of the resort that day and going home to sleep. He couldn’t reach us on the cell probably because we were out of the service area or something. Then he had tried calling the cell again Sunday morning and a lady picked up telling dad the phone was at the little wood crafts gift shop. Well you can imagine what dad thought when some lady picked up! Scary eh? but he reached us at home that morn and told us where the lady said the phone was and we went up AGAIN to get it and did a couple things. Then off to splash down in Fishkill and that is the end of my trip!

Oh we also met some nice waitresses! You can see them in the pictures. Cristy was the one who served us dinner and breakfast every day. Adina a Russian babe was the waitress in the bar. I got her email address and I am going to try and stay in contact with her. Well thats it! Enjoy the pictures and video’s in the video section!

Sorry all that i have yet to post pictures from my trip. You see today i got a virus in my computer so that has delayed me further. The past few days also i have been a little out of it because i just got off vacation and i dont feel like "working". Its a very tideous job going through, editing, picking, choosing sorting, over 600 pictures from a trip! I have yet to decide how i am going to post things. Like what things i will put together and where what things i will keep seperate and so on. But now the virus has really slowed me down. Patience is a virtue!

Well I am back, and yes you better believe I have TONS of pictures! Nearly 3 GB’s worth! Boy did we do a lot in a weeks time! Very busy schedule for a vacation. The problem area was that we stayed at a resort and had to be around for our dinner and breakfast. So we had to be up at 8:30 in the dinning room for breakfast and had to be back to the dinning room by 5:30 for dinner. So because of that we had to always get back to the resort for dinner. And because we stayed up late every night I did not get enough sleep because we had to wake for breakfast! BUT OH BOY THE FOOD! WOW they gave you MORE THEN ENOUGH! i ate TO MUCH almost every day! after breakfast i was sooooooo stuffed that i didn’t want to even think about food for a loong time! I just wanted to plop down on the bed and go back to sleep but there was no time for it! we were always going! It was tasty food too, wasn’t cheap or bad quality, no it was good food!

It will take me some time to organize and set up pictures for the blog but be on the look out and keep checking back for updates and pictures!

But before i end this post let me tell you a little of that i did! First of all upstate NY is nothing but farm land and large fields for miles at a time (most of you should already know that already though) So everything is spread out and it takes some driving to get places. We drove over 550 miles up and back and around for our vacation (course we drove up and home a couple days because we couldn’t get the room for a couple more days. but from Kingston it is only a 45 min drive so it was fine that we had to sleep on our own beds a couple nights.) So we did the typical things canoing, hiking, I went on a trail ride on a very large horse, and visited some interesting places like Howe Caverns. So thats some of what I did as i said i will have pictures ready soon so be ready! Lots of photography!

First off every one please pray for my Ruffle! (My dog) He has an infected and swollen anul gland. He is at the vet as I type this. Its a very annoying rather yicky thing. So pray he heals fast. Meanwhile I AM OFF ON VACATION! I am leaving for Durem NY, an Irish Resort in upstate NY in the Catskills i believe on Sunday. My mom picked it don’t ask! Either way it should be fun! Some hiking and creak or should i say crick exploring, Irish karaoke and so on. So I will definitely be taking loads of pictures! Pray for a safe trip up and back and that we have fun! WEEEEEE OFF I GO! I hope Ruffles will be ok while im gone!