Two Days In June - Day I - Part II

After leaving Sutliff, it was time to check in at our hotel - and experience the only negative of our whole trip - the pool and hot tub area was closed. Closed not due to Covid-19, but because that end of the building was heavily damaged by the derecho. Rats! I was really looking forward to soaking in that whirlpool.

Bud stayed in the hotel while Dominique and I went shopping. Mt. Vernon has a charming downtown lined with attractive old buildings. We only went into a couple shops before I realized I really wasn't in the mood to shop, I just wanted to drive around, see if I recognized anything from fifty-four years ago.

We drove north all the way out of town on 1st Avenue, aka Highway 1, then west on a gravel road and back south when I saw this magnificent brick barn:

The house was equally impressive, but I didn't take any photos of it - I'm more about barns.

A view of the front from along the highway, showing the approach to the carriage entrance. From here we headed back toward town. 

When near a bridge we saw small birds diving toward a big bird I thought was a Turkey Buzzard until we got closer and I saw the white head.

The Bald Eagle flew away but landed in a tree close enough to take a couple pictures from the car. 

Even though sightings have become more common since the banning of DDT almost forty years ago, it is still a thrill to see one of these symbols of our nation.

Cornell College Campus is one area of Mt. Vernon that still looks familiar to me. The college is the reason my granddaughter now lives in Mt. Vernon - she received a cross-country/track and field scholarship to attend Cornell. (Photo from the College website.)

We drove through the campus with Dominique pointing out the dorms she had lived in, buildings where she had attended classes, etc. Of course I recognized King Chapel, the limestone building on the left.

But I had never been inside any of those buildings. The only place on campus I had ever spent any time was at the pond. I would go there to sit, think, dream. I never knew the name of the pond, located along Libary Lane, but learned that it is Ink Pond. There is also an Ink Road. I can only conclude that they were named for Morgan L. Ink, an early settler (1855) of Mt. Vernon, who opened a general store and built a sawmill.

I was so intent on taking a photo of this smoke stack(?) and the bell tower on College Hall (originally known as Old Main and second academic building built on campus in 1855), that I almost stepped on.....

.....this little frog.

It was quite a ways from the pond, but I imagine that is where it was headed. 

From the college campus to the Old Lincoln Highway (10th Avenue NW) bridge over the railroad tracks.

This is now closed to traffic and an excellent spot from which to take photos.

 

Until Dominique told me.....

....I had no idea this was the same RR bridge from which great-grandsons Greyson and Ayden were watching for trains when this photo was taken last July. 

I'm sure they would have been as fascinated by this Garter Snake as we were.

I took nine pictures of it before it crawled into that hole near its tail.

Not as many as nine photos, but I did take quite a few of this Catbird frolicking in the water down by the railroad tracks.

And this final shot before taking Dominique home and heading back to the hotel.

I can't resist fungi. They fascinate me. I always think: "Is it edible?"

Back at the hotel Tuesday evening, I was reading and Bud was watching TV. He said, "I hear sirens." He muted the TV and I looked out the window. I could see the flashing lights of an ambulance, followed by a firetruck. It wasn't long before four more emergency vehicles left town and went west on Hwy 30.

My first thought was, "It must be a very bad accident". Followed by, "I wonder if Dominique and/or Ian is in one of those ambulances." They are both first responders on the Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance Service.

We learned the next morning that Ian had already been on two calls that evening before the third call, the one for the car crash, came in, which he didn't go on. We also learned that the driver of the car had died at the scene, not far from the entrance to Palisades-Kepler State Park. 

A sobering thought to the end of a lovely day.