Late Fall Adventures

The fall colors this year were nothing short of phenomenal. For the two weeks after getting back from Boston, the foliage did the NE reputation proud (which hasn't been as much the case the last 3 years I've been here). The trees were eye-popping yellows, oranges, and reds that were a delight to photograph. (Gallery here!) Along with this was some beautiful weather that made for some enjoyable afternoons wandering around campus with my camera.

Look up! The contrast is amazing.

From the clocktower, looking towards downtown Ithaca.

Engineering Quad colors

Halloween also provided some good photo opportunities, with a gorgeous sunset and full moon.

The clocktower gets decorated for Halloween every year. The sunset doesn't happen every year.

In the first week of November, I had the chance to give a talk at Stanford on a Friday, then hang out with my brother for the rest of the weekend. The workshop itself was on a hill overlooking the Stanford campus, in a very nice "research center" that was beautiful and well set up for special events. I don't think they let the lowly students up there much! (Photo gallery here!)

The rest of the weekend was spent exploring campus, doing some walks within biking distance from campus, and just chilling. Saturday afternoon, after seeing the main part of campus in the morning, we rode bikes out to the Arastradero preserve to walk around. The weather was California beautiful... 65 and sunny. Which (unfortunately from my perspective) was also the case back in Ithaca! Not to complain, but couldn't the November heat wave have hit Ithaca one of the 28 days I was in town? Oh well.

Old Union building, Stanford campus

Cactus garden, Stanford arboretum

After church and dinner with friends on Sunday, we walked the "dish", a Stanford-owned natural area just above campus with nice views out over the Bay area as the sun set. The recent daylight-saving time thing meant it was getting dark at 5, which was really throwing me off. We went for an In & Out burger run with my brother's roommate that night (mm. good burgers!) before I turned in early to get precious few hours of sleep. (the airport shuttle came at 3am the next morning!) The trip back could have been worse. They canceled my flight from Philly to Ithaca, which meant I got to sit around the Philly airport for a nice 8 hrs or so. I still got back to Ithaca not long after 9pm, but that still made for a long day.

Hills above Stanford, looking out at the Bay

Since then, I've been getting research done again (There have been many good distractions this season!) as the weather gets colder and the landscape is now an un-photogenic grey and brown. But, there have been a couple good sunsets in there that have got the camera shutter moving.

In your face sunset colors.