Our Special Outings

I belong to a very cool Meetup group called Nature Photography.  Meetups is a nationwide program where people do just exactly that, meetup.  I was turned on to Meetups from a very good friend who told me to go online and research Rochester Meetup.  The amount of groups is aweome and anyone can find something that fits their interests.  I have yet to "meetup" with any of these people but I do get great ideas of where to take Sam from the emails that they send me. 

I don't think I could find all of these interesting places without the help from outside resources.  It is amazing that you can live your life in one place and miss all of the beauty that surrounds us.  This is just one more gift that Sam has given me with his photography.  I don't know if Sam truly understand the beauty that comes in through all of his senses but I can say that his visual sense of the world is profound.

It is interesting to me that a person with Autism will walk into a room and see everything.  I can't imagine walking into a room and see walls, pictures, knick knacks, pillows, chairs, tv, stereo, books, games, carpet, pieces of thread, pieces of paper, cracks in paint, blinds, chords from the blinds, curtains, computers and the list goes on.  This is what Sam's sees in our living room and he filters out nothing.  He is bombarded with information all the time.  The beauty of all of this information is seen in his photographs.  There are lines of light, shadows, shapes and beautiful colors.  I am there for every picture that he takes and I don't see what he sees.  How I think he should take the picture is totally different on how he wants to take it and his way is better all the time. 

This is what I do for an outing.  I have kept all of the emails from the Meetup emails in a folder that inform everyone on where they are going to meet.  I look it up and see how long it will take to get there and map out what the day will look like with cost of food, gas ect.  I also use the photography as a social goal and I often call Sam's friend to see if he can come with us.  His name is Kendall and Sam has a much better time with someone to hang out with.  Kendall uses Mina's camera because he doesn't have one of his own.  I used to take Mina with me to scout the area first but I have since stopped that ritual because we are all so very busy.  I just take the plunge and figure out the routes and Kendall, Sam and I discover all of these places together.

This is Chimney Bluffs near Sodus, NY.  Kendall didn't come with us that day.  I just love how the fall leaves frame the photo.

Sam and I went to Corbett's Glen which is in Penfield near our home in Greece.  I remember that day because it was jut Sam and me and I was the one carrying the camera and tripod while hiking on the trails.  I remember taking a photography class and the teacher said that tripods were like dogs, everyone wants to talk with you.  I found out that day that this was very true.  That day was filled with a lot of interesting conversations and I had a blast.  Sam had a good time playing in the stream while taking breaks from taking his wonderful photos.

It is diffcult to choose my favorite from that day so I will pick Mina's .  This is the photo that she wants to hang in her dorm room when she goes to college in the fall.

There are days when I am so tired but as Sam's very dear friend and mentor Nick Kelsh says, "You are only as good as your last photograph."  On this day I took Kendall and another young man, Marcus, with us and unfortunately I didn't have a camera for Marcus but he was a good sport.  Marcus and Kendall live in the inner city and they don't have a chance to travel much out of Rochester so Marcus was psyched for our short trip.  We went to Buttermilk Falls in LeRoy, NY.  I had to call Kendall's Mom, while on the road, for her to look it up online to help us find it.  All three of us ended up on this guy's land and he was a trooper as he explained where we could park on his land to walk to the falls. The kids had a blast skipping rocks in the stream.

This is a photo that Sam edited with Sarah who is his Music Therapist from Hochstein.   This is one of those photos that for some reason speaks to me. This photo is one of my all time favorites. If you look closely, you can see the falls in the background.

This is a picture I took of Kendall.

The three boys hanging together.

Our next trip was to Taughannock Falls that is located in Ulysses, NY.  I was feeling adventurous and decided to make the two hour trip with the two boys. On a Saturday morning I picked up Kendall and headed straight to the gas station and the boys felt like it was Christmas as I bought them snacks after filling up the car.

Once on the road, I realized that I didn't have the directions so I called Kendall's Mom having the toughest time trying to spell a rediculous long name that sounds like tonic with a ka in the middle of it.  The only thing I remembered was Ulysses and Rt. 89 and that is what I put into the GPS. After the snacks were gone the car was filled with "Are we there yet?" and I put the boys to the task of finding an ice cream stand.  Just when Sam couldn't take it anymore we found the tell tale sign of the big wooden ice cream cone.  The ice cream was a wonderful treat for that hot day.

Luck would have it that we were only a few minutes away from our destination and as we approached I heard beautiful sounds of "Woo Hoo!" in the back as we pulled in the parking lot with Sam having the last word of "Finally!"

Our first stop was looking down on the falls.  It was pretty and everything but the boys were more interested in the people that looked like ants down below.  We got back into the car to drive downhill in hopes of finding the trail. We paid for parking and headed towards all the other folks that seemed to know where they were going.  All I can say is that the rest of the day was incredible.

As a result of not scouting the place with Mina, I had no idea how long we would be on the trail.  I promised the boys that they could walk in the stream with the rest of the tourists on the way back to the car.  We finally made it and Sam's picture will not do the falls justice.

I thought this was a cool picture.

The boys skipping rocks.

As promised, the boys walked back to the car in the stream.

*You can find Sam's photos on his facebook page Snapshots by Sam Maloney.

*The background of this blog was a picture that Sam took while looking for Salmon.