R & R

The past couple of days, I’ve been spending a few quite days in Vermont ahead of the ReadEx Digital Institute.  I’ve had the opportunity to be able to attend and speak at this little shin-dig for a number of years, and this year is no different.  I actually like this get together a lot for a couple of reasons.  First, you get a real diverse range of librarians and libraries that attend.  The audience can range from the very technical to the not so technical — but every shares an interest in digital libraries, preservation and digitization in general.  Secondly, it gives me an opportunity to spend time in New England.  What a wonderful place to visit.  I’ve fallen in love a number of times with the hiking in this area and like previous years, I took a couple of days prior to the Digital Institute to head to the back country and do a little bit of hiking. 

This year, my hiking partner and went for something a little more leisurely and hiked up something called the Roosters Coop (I think).  Not very high (the book I think said 2700 ft) but really scenic.  On the climb up, we came across a waterfall off trail and decided to take a closer look:

and then decided to go off trail a little more and climb up the side of the waterfall (because it’s quite a bit higher than the picture).  It ended up being a little bit slicker than either of us would have thought, but the view from the top was worth it.

After fooling around on the waterfall and making back down without falling, we started back up the hill.  The climb opens up into two vistas.  One over looks Keene Valley (small town), while the other looks out more towards Giant Mt.  Throughout the climb, we were rained on, hailed on and at the vistas, enjoyed lots of sun.  A great day.  And while I didn’t get it in the pictures, I got to see snow on the mountains as well.  Around 3500 ft, their was visible snow on the mountain tops — which make me wish we’d picked a little bigger mountain. 🙂 

One thing I certainly love about this area is you can so tell that it’s fall.  The leaves change color in a way that just doesn’t happen in the Pacific NW.  Anyway, here are a few more pictures.

Of course, it’s easy to relax on a trip like this, when I know that batman is at home holding down the fort. 🙂

–TR