"Lichens on Storm King Wall, 2010"

After our wedding at the end of September we decided to take a "mini-moon" and climb north of the city up the Hudson to check out the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. I am still sorting through the 300+ photos I took of the magnificent landscape and accompanying sculpture, with more posts to follow, but this one I wanted to share right away. Andy Goldsworthy in 1997 and 1998 created the "Storm King Wall", a perfectly constructed stone wall that winds between a stand of shade trees and goes down to disappear into a nearby body of water. Originally introduced to the concept and the piece via the must-see documentary Rivers and Tides, my wife and I were both very excited to see it in person. And you might imagine my pleasant surprise to not only find the wall during our afternoon hike through the landscape but to find a ton of different lichen species growing on the beautiful gray field stone. Talk about mixing art and horticulture - I was loving it! Lichens are amazing characters in the biological world and I can't even begin to describe their complexity and value among natural ecosystems. Luckily I found a website created by the Sharnoff's, who wrote Lichens of North America along with Irwin Brodo (Yale University Press, 2001), so if you want to get your Sunday morning science fix on, check out lichen.com

Back in the Saddle (...well kinda...)

A stand of spruce (Picea) at the Storm King Art Center up the Hudson River in Mountainville, NY.
After my wife (!) and I tied the knot out in Montauk, NY on September 26th we returned home with not really enough time or money to pull off the grand honeymoon we dreamed of. But we didn't want to fall back into the home routine too quickly so we decided to have ourselves a "mini-moon" instead. Part of it was an adventure north of the city to Storm King, the 500-acre state park and sculpture garden that we had both talked about curiously for years. The rain held off for a few hours and we were able to spend the better part of a day hiking and viewing and being amazed by the landscape and all it's features. We treated ourselves to a night at the Storm King Lodge, a wonderful local B&B, and it was wonderful to stay away from the couch, up in the hills and hiking among the meadows and the stands of evergreens and deciduous trees.
More pics from Storm King and more posts (old and new) I hope to create in the next couple days. After such a sensational wedding weekend in Montauk and the rest of the second week mini-moon I am still mentally in the clouds a little bit. But it is great to be back, and with so many images and so much inspiration to move forward into the next chapter. As Steven Tyler used to blast into my Walkman headphones all those years ago, "I'm back in the saddle again, ...I'm back!"

...but perhaps something a little more mellow for this morning, ...vacation isn't over yet.