And now, lights.: Hiking East Rock!

We went hiking in Easy Rock Park yesterday. It was gorgeous, and I'm so lucky A has reading week this week and we were able to take advantage of an absolutely breathtaking fall day to hike up the crest that awarded us with views spanning most of the greater New Haven area.

The leaves have finally, finally started changing in a significant way- fiery colors of red, yellow, and orange mixed in with trees that are holding out for colder days. I understand those trees maybe more than the ones showing off.

The trails were not marked at ALL, even from the parking lot, so we got super lost and ended up hiking the length and breadth of the park instead of the 1.1 mile walk it should have taken to get to the top of the main crest, totally worth it since we got to see 2 deer, one of which was extremely close and completely snuck up on us. I didn't see it til it was bounding away, though, which means my pictures of it weren't so great.

Deer butt.

Part of the trail was a monster. A serious beast and the only thing worse than climbing these stairs would be to have to actually build them:

But they were along the side of a bluff, so I guess I need to be thankful that I was able to survive that climb. The rocks were a gorgeous red-orange.

At the top of the bluff, though, was an amazing view. Amazing. These pictures don't do it justice.

Like I said, there's a park at the top that you can actually drive to. People eat lunch or just hang out up there, but my favorite guy was this guy, who had an absolutely GORGEOUS shiny blue Harley. And he was just there to take it all in, watch the ~~buzzards~~ birds, have a cigarette and enjoy the view.