Pictures from the Adirondack Mountains

We camped for ten days at a campground north of Paul Smiths, NY. The weather was probably the weirdest we've ever found in late June - rain, fog, cold (!), gray, sunny, hot (!), and, also, just right! But we were prepared for it and enjoyed ourselves. I'd like to share some pictures:

This picture needs an explanation. The day before we left for the mountains I had to have my little boy cat, Poco, put to sleep. He developed some serious problems very quickly. It was a hard thing for me to do as he had been my baby for the past twelve years. I picked him out of a pile of kittens, and he'd been mine ever since. At camp, on the first day, this butterfly was constantly following me. It landed on the arm of my chair, something that isn't frequently seen. It (or one just like it) even followed our canoe. After several days of this we decided that the butterfly was my Poco's spirit, and he was making sure that we were all right. After a week we didn't see it any more.


Loons are a daily occurrence, but I don't often have the camera handy when they dry their wings! This was wonderful!


And we see lots of Great Blue Herons here in Upstate New York, but we hadn't ever seen one at this particular campground. This one just glided in right in front of us.


Pitcher Plant at the Visitor's Interpretive Center at Paul Smiths.


Wild orchid on a bog trail at Paul Smiths.

This was probably the most difficult to photograph. My camera was hand held, not on a tripod. I took many pictures over several nights, but I think I like this the best.


Mama Merganser and the kids. She was really tooling along, and at least three of the babies were on her back.

In addition to all of these, we had our resident chipmunk who was easily trained to find the sunflower seeds my husband would hide for him. We put up a hummingbird feeder and had a hit on it within an hour. We usually see a Bald Eagle at the end of the lake, but this year he wasn't there. Owls are frequent night visitors. And this year we heard coyotes several nights.

The Adirondacks are an amazing place to spend time. We're seriously thinking of locating our retirement home within the Park.