Frozen Lakes and Waterfalls

11 January 2015

Tom took us to Duke Farms this morning for a short ride that was more about taking pictures and doubling back than it was about exercise.  Jim, Joe, and Barry were also willing to brave the sub-freezing morning air.

As is my habit, I didn't do any reading about the history or the landscape before the ride.  As we stopped at the top of a bridge on one of the wide, paved paths through the estate, I wondered if there was some Olmstead influence.  Turns out there was: one of his associates planned the place (see the landscape link).

We began at the ride from the parking lot off of Duke's Parkway West.  A crossing guard stopped nonexistent traffic to guide us to the estate's entrance on the other side of the road.

I lost count of the number of frozen lakes that we passed.  I think we stopped for all of the man-made waterfalls.

There are a few little hills.

I wore my new pair of lobster claw gloves today.  It made for some fumbling lack of dexterity, and in shoving my camera back into my pocket, I inadvertently switched the exposure to fish-eye.  I like how it came out; it looks how I feel at the end of a long ride.

This was a short ride, though:

Fish-eye is fun.

This is the foundation of the estate's mansion that never got built.  Maybe this counts as a folly.

Whatever this was, it's a sculpture garden now:

We found ourselves back at the entrance sooner than we'd expected, so we crossed the road and, after a few false starts, wound around a meadow.

We hadn't planned to ride on any of the trails anyway, bikes not being permitted, but I had to stop for this picture, seeing as how both Tom and I were on the same ride and all:

Views from the meadow: