An Irish Blessing

After finishing the hike with Jason and his friends, I drove a little further into town to find a place to eat. My plan was to go find the letterbox hidden at Ringwood Manor, and I thought perhaps I should grab a bite to eat before hand. So first I went to the little New York town of Tuxedo, where I ate at a busy diner where they had good French toast. Looking out the window of the diner, I learned that gasoline in New York is at least $0.50 more than it is in New Jersey.

Anyway, after lunch I found my way to Ringwood Manor, which is just a few miles back over the border on the Jersey side. I should have read the clues for An Irish Blessing more carefully before I got started. For some reason I was under the impression that this would be a quick find. I didn't even change back into my hiking boots, which would have been nice since was tromping around in the woods wearing my sandals.

The hike was really nice though. The manor grounds are pretty with interesting things to look at, like a reflecting pool and sculptures of creepy looking beasty chicks.

There's a little lake, next to which is a graveyard I guess for the people who used to live in the manor way back in way-back times. For some reason I like graveyards, especially when you can see water from them.

Since it's been so warm so far this fall, there has been very little change in leaf color. So here's one of the few examples of fall foliage I found - the picture doesn't convey the color as well as it looked in person, and I can't quite get it right in Photoshop, but it's pretty close. Oh well.

So the hike and the hunt ended up taking about an hour and a half altogether. I could have done it more quickly but I was having fun poking around the graveyard, and then when I was just about ready to find the letterbox, I had to sit real quiet for several minutes while waiting for other hikers to pass by. Sera and Doobie carved a real pretty stamp, so yeah, other people should go find it. :)