Wednesday October 30, 2024 -Mendon Ponds Meadow Trail - Mendon Center NY (Rochester) - 3.5 miles, 150 feet elevation gain

We both took this day off.  We celebrate October 30th as our anniversary because it marked the date of our first date. Our wedding anniversary is in November and was many years later than when we met of course.  There were a bunch of errands including voting but for the hike I chose a place that was in the same direction as the bagel shop we were headed to for breakfast for anyway.

Mendon Ponds park is large rural park in Monroe county (same county as Rochester).  Though it's pretty close to where we live it isn't a park we go to very often.  It was a good fit for this Wednesday morning since it wouldn't be busy.

The trail was really nice with quite a bit of wetland and pond facing trail and also some areas that really looked like an African Savannah.  The leaves are mostly down from the trees but there are still hints of color to spruce things up.  It felt like a great peaceful start to our quiet special day off.

The deer (send to last picture) was very a strange encounter. Initially there was just one deer standing very directly in the middle of the trail.  It didn't run off or even flinch as we walked up the trail.  We tried talking to it and fully expected it to flitter off to the side of the trail but instead it was soon joined by a 2nd deer.  There were a total of at least 3 of them and it was clear that those 2 were holding their ground for some reason.  We tried to navigate around the deer but the closest branching trail went off at such a sharp angle (and didn't connect back to where wanted to go in any reasonable way) that we really had to backtrack and try again.  I briefly tried to have us bushwhack around the deer but that wasn't practical.  Thankfully, by the time we got back the deer had moved on from blocking the trail though they were still nearby in the bushes near us.












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