Author: Taite

A year has gone by without a post, so here is an effort to highlight the major events of 2023.

The month of May saw trips to DC and Shenandoah National Park. DC had its Embassy Day that weekend, when many embassies were open to the public with art, performances, and traditional foods.

This was my first time to Shenandoah. We explored a lot of the park, going to caves deep underground and trails to mountaintops.

Right on the heels of the Shenandoah trip, I traveled to the PNW for my cousin’s wedding. The first stop was Seattle.

The last stop was Portland before heading home.

June included a trip to the Adirondacks. I didn’t take many photos on my DSLR, but I did catch this groundhog:

In August I visited DC again.

In September I got a chance to do some long exposure night photography.

October and November included some trips to see fall foliage in Jim Thorpe and Lancaster, PA.

In December I hiked Mt. Monadnock when I went back home. The view from the top was nonexistent, but the snow was pretty.

More adventures to come in 2024!

Some photos from the last few months. The highlight was a weekend trip to New York City back in February.

In July I was lucky enough to spend a full week in Puerto Rico for work. I had the weekend to myself to explore the island. Here are some photos from that trip, plus other photos from home.

Some highlights:

• El Yunque national forest
• Arecibo radio observatory
• Old San Juan
• Stray cats

Oh no, looks like I have unpublished photos from as far back as February!

In late February I went to see the snow geese migration at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area near Lancaster. I waited for a couple hours in the freezing cold with a crowd of other people and was finally rewarded by a mass takeoff of geese from the lake, which sounded like a jet engine. One little kid described it best, as “an Armageddon of birds!”

A week later, on March 12th, we had the biggest snowstorm of the year.

Over the first week of April I took a ski trip with two college friends out West. We visited Grand Teton and Jackson Hole in Wyoming, Steamboat and Keystone in Colorado, starting and finishing in Denver. We saw the mountain towns of Casper, Jackson, Steamboat Springs and Breckenridge. Aside from excellent skiing (maybe less so in April) the Rockies are one of the most picturesque regions in the country, and I couldn’t help spending hours lining up different shots of the mountains.

In May, we had a lunar eclipse which I was lucky enough to see in between storm systems. Here are a bonus snake and toad from a recent hike.

Some photos from hikes in PA, some pics from visiting Vermont for the holidays, some photos from a trip to DC. Lots of animals!

Fall has fell in the Lehigh Valley. The leaves changed a couple weeks later than in Vermont, and it’s stayed warmer even into November.

In early October, I met up with my parents in the Hudson Valley area to visit the Storm King art center and some of the other local sights. Later, I went on photography meetups at the Archibald Johnston Mansion in Bethlehem and to several waterfalls in the Delaware Water Gap area. And there are more photos from the Appalachian Trail, which is only half an hour from my apartment.

Since I moved here, I’ve done a lot of exploring around this beautiful area. Some highlights:

The Delaware and Lehigh Rail Trail, which goes from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol through the Lehigh Valley. I’ve biked sections in Bethlehem/Easton, Northampton, and Jim Thorpe.

Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center, a park to the northeast with lots of multi-use trails.

French Creek State Park, a big forested area next to Hopewell Furnace, a preserved old timey mill village.

Ricketts Glen State Park, a park with 21 waterfalls where I went on a waterfall photography trip. I learned some new tricks for getting silky smooth shots of the water.

Centralia, an abandoned town where an underground coal fire has been burning since 1962. It’s since been reclaimed by shrubs and graffiti artists. Nearby are some excellent gravel roads and mountain bike trails running between Routes 54 and 42.

The Ironton Rail Trail which runs past several train cars on display and the old Coplay Cement Company kilns.

My roommates and I did a lot of outings in the weeks after a cyberattack ended RPI finals prematurely. Among the places we visited were Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskills, June Farms, Washington Park in Albany, and Shelving Rock near Lake George. With other friends, I went to the Snow Hole on the Taconic Crest Trail (when there was still snow on the ground, in April), Indian Head and Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks.

On the 22nd of May I graduated summa cum laude from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering with a minor in General Psychology and a concentration in Power Systems. I received the Henry J. Nolte Memorial Prize for an outstanding engineering research or design project, and the Grainger Scholar Award for academic performance and future promise in the area of power systems, both from the Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering. It has been an incredible experience which felt like much more than four years. Like any epic journey, this one had its guides and supporters, including my family, the friends who kept in touch from high school, the friends I made along the way, the faculty of The Sharon Academy who awarded me a crucial scholarship, and all the outstanding professors who showed personal interest in every student’s success.

In the weeks after graduation, I reconnected with a couple roommates in Massachusetts, did some local hiking, stayed at Highland Lodge with my parents, and visited a friend’s cabin on Loon Lake.

Here are some pictures from hikes around Bromley (Vermont), Black Mountain (New York), The Dome (Vermont), Rip Rock (New York), and Thacher (New York). We have had a string of nice, sunny weekends for hiking. Wildlife include turkey vultures, chipmunks, and even a porcupine.

I took another trip out to Greylock with my friend a couple weeks ago, this time in deep snow and freezing temperatures.