Signs of Fall

The trees have finally started to turn -- it's a late autumn this year.

I think I take this photo every year. There's still a lot of green, but the foliage has thinned to let in a luminous glow.

Lon & Dakota as we come up to "Three Rivers Campground". (Haven't camped there for years. There's a small tree growing in the middle of the campfire ring!)

Early yesterday afternoon the moon was setting behind the mountain. You can see that some of the trees have their fall color.

A less welcome sign of fall are the Japanese multi-colored lady beetles (or lady bugs if you want to be entomologically incorrect). It's a warm day after a week or so of night-time freezing, and they are swarming looking for a place to spend the winter. They squeeze through ridiculously small cracks, but die within hours indoors. From now through April we'll be sweeping and vacuuming them up daily.

A closer look at the lady beetles. I didn't want to get close enough for a good photo, so this is just an enlargement from the previous photo. These are nasty: they are aggressive, bite, and when they die they stink. This is a real invasive alien species!

Pittsburgh - Step Trek 2018

Step Trek is an annual urban hike through Pittsburgh's South Side Slopes. Much of the route is over streets that are just steps. We took a leisurely three hours to walk the "Gold" route that meandered up and down the western part of the Slopes.

Both the Gold and Black routes start and end at the end of 21st Street under the Mission Street Bridge. In addition to ticket sales and free water and fruit, there were six food trucks serving everything from donuts to Indian take-out.

The 15th Street pedestrian bridge over the Norfolk & Western railway tracks.

Lauer Way steps are an example of a typical Pittsburgh "step" street.

Great views of the city were frequent. The Birmingham Bridge is in the middle of this photo, and the tall dark building on the horizon is the Cathedral of Learning (University of Pittsburgh) in Oakland.

To the left was downtown Pittsburgh. Those billowing clouds portended rain to come.

At the top of the Germantown Square steps (265 of them!) was a bell to ring to mark the longest step climb of Step Trek. Amos climbed ALL of these steps himself.

One part of the climb was on the Knoxville Incline Greenway Trail.

We were getting close to the end when those threatening clouds burst forth into a short downpour.

As we ate lunch at the food trucks, the clouds parted -- temporarily. We still got soaked by a second downpour on our way back to David & Maria's house.