Minnehaha Falls

I almost forgot about all these pics, then I came across them when I was putting together October's NOTD slideshow.  Today was so nice - nearly 70 degrees, I believe the average for this time of year is now in the 40's - that I was reminded again that I needed to get some of these posted.

Back on October 9th, it was also a ridiculously nice day - in the mid 80's.  Those of your who've been reading for a while may remember that in 2009, I was greeted with 3 inches on snow on the 12th.  But I guess that's just part of the fun living in Minnesota, you never know what you're going to get =)  Although I'm sure you won't be surprised to know that I prefer the warm option LOL.

Anyway, Mom & I decided to take advantage, we went out to lunch - which I really should have taken pictures of the food, it was delicious - and then we continued on to Minnehaha Falls. Parking was insane, but we manage to grab a spot, then we walked to the falls, and from the falls down to the Mississippi river, up the other side of the creek & finally home. I ran out my battery & almost filled up my memory card!  Enjoy =)

This was just in a garden area of the park approaching the falls:



Then we actually got to the falls - there was a ton of mist in the air, it was actually noticeably cooler in the area - but it was so hot that was kind of nice!

This is part of the upper section of the creek:

Then we went down the stairs - lots of stairs, I'm telling you, but I didn't have a good pic that showed all of them - to the path along the lower end of the creek.  The people you can see up near the falls aren't really supposed to be there, everything past the fences is off-limits - but it's not really enforced.  Mom says back in the day there used to be more of a path actually behind the falls, but it's pretty eroded at this point:

We went a little further, stopped for a while at the pool although we were not among the bunch sticking our feet in:

Then we continued down the creek.  We were debating how far down toward the river we would go, because we only had 2 hours of parking, but we did manage to go the full distance & make it back without getting a ticket  =)  Some of the areas like the pool above have been renovated, but they haven't done the whole path yet & other areas show the wear of years & neglect.  Even those areas have a natural beauty still, just maybe not a place to sit down & enjoy it LOL:

This cliff was made out of sandstone & had a lot of carvings in it: 

Right at the base of the falls & for most of the way down, the creek runs really fast, but then as we got closer to the big river it slowed down & got very calm:

And then we came around a corner & there was the mighty Mississippi =)  I stitched together a panoramic shot, do click to enlarge & really enjoy:

We enjoyed the view for a while, but with no time to spare we started back, along the other side of the creek.  Turns out this was the easy side LOL, the renovations went further down the trail, so we were able to set a better pace & I did mange to snap a few more pics:

We stopped at one more scenic outlook on the way home, and I got a few really nice shots of the fall colors:

This color combination I especially wanted to capture in a manicure, maybe a fall-themed water marble, but I still haven't gotten around to that - and now they're saying snow by Saturday =( so it won't be very seasonally appropriate much longer. 

I'm not usually a huge fan of fall, weather getting chilly, threats of snow, and trouble with my asthma - but days like this was, I'll take anytime =)  Thanks for reading.

~Colette