Sunday Stills: Fall Foliage aka. A Walk in Busey Woods

Grab a cup of coffee, this is a long post with lots of pics. I got real lucky this year and while enjoying some off time in Illinois the trees, mostly Sugar Maples were in full colour and I was like a kid in a candy shop. Last Sunday I went to my favorite place in Urbana, Busey Woods, a 59 acre postage stamp of a wooded area which once was a forest of over 20 square miles. Now its a nature preserve and a little bit of heaven where I played as a kid and a place where I could let my young imagination run wild. The base of the woods is the Anita Purvis Nature Center and a great facility that welcomes visitors to the woods. And now for the pics, imagine the wind rustling though the trees and the amber glow of the sun filtering to the forest floor and the crunching of leaves under foot, it was awesome!

Urban Fall

From parks to the streets of old town Urbana Illinois where I grew up, my dad and I just drove around looking for colour last Monday.

Fallapalooza pt.2

The water shots from yesterday and todays pics are from a park in Urbana Illinois called Crystal Lake Park, whick is an oxymoron because there is nothing crystal about the clarity of the water. It is a nice park anyway with lots of fall colour and my first visit to this park was back in 1966 when I got to feed the ducks.. 🙂

And what a great way to end a day of leaf watching, an Urbana Illinois original….. Lil’ Porgys BBQ! I’ve been eating in this same place for 35 years, nothing says welcome back to my hometown than their pork sandwiches and steak fries with a cup of mix sauce to dip them in and chased with a lemon shakeup… Yummmmmm!

Wordless Wednesday

Fallapalooza

its been a fun past 4 days in Illinois doing what I like best, taking pics and visiting with my dad. As luck would have it the trees are just past peak and the colours are fantastic, so here goes 6 days of fall colours ending with this weeks Sunday Stills challenge which just happens to be fall colours… 😉

I took all the pics in the past few days..

Macro Monday: Colours of Fall

For today I thought I would look into some changing leaves…..

Sunday Stills: Trees/ Fall Foliage

Fall is my favorite time of year, not too hot,not too cold and the leaves are fantastic…..

Thoughts From the Road

Why do I call my blog “Thoughts from the road”? The best of times are driving along the Cherohala Skyway early morning listening to Bethoven or Mozart and just letting my mind wander about this and that, no worries, no problems, just pure bliss. Even when I’m driving my truck across the country delivering commercial goods, its good to just not get stressed out about anything. When I get bummed out I just grab the camera and start brainlessly click away at anything and sometimes I even come up with a good shot or two. Hope everyone has a great week…..

The Tour Continues….

So for today we are heading back across the Tennessee state line on the Cherohalla Skyway to the North River road, my favorite drive. I can always find something interesting to photograph and its just a peaceful quiet drive and eventually you get down to the camp areas and the smell of campfires is fantastic….







And what would a trip on the North River be without a couple water shots…


Hope ya’ll enjoyed the trip…

A Walk and a Drive in the Smokey Mountains

My favorite time of year is the fall, the heat breaks and the colours come out and I’m happy as a clam. Today we are at the Maple Springs overlook near the Joyce Kilmer Memorial forest just across the Tennessee state line in North Carolina. I hope everyone does not get bores with fall foliage pics because there will be tons to come over the next week or so. Tomorrow we will take a drive down the North River road in the Cherokee National forest in Tennessee.