My Fall Memory - Our First Family Hike!

Hi! My name is Melissa Leah! I'm 24 & live in New York, and my favorite fall memory is our first family hike!
This actually happened this year, in September.
I got married last September, and adopted my husbands puppy, his name is Benji! (he has two nicknames, the Fluff Monster & The Fluff Dragon)
For our 1st year anniversary, my husband Mike took Benji and I on a family outing to go hiking. We live in the Hudson Valley, I just moved out here about two years ago. I have NEVER in my life gone hiking before, and where I'm originally from in NY is VERY flat with no mountains, trees, rivers, waterfall lakes like this at all, and so seeing fall here was like seeing a new kind of fall for the first time. I also have never had a dog before too, so this was a time of "firsts" for me!

The weather was beautiful for a late September day, but I kept hearing "hurricane" weather warnings, which usually I just ignore
But when we got to the trail, it was closed for hurricane watch (you can see me in my swimsuit & sneakers by the sign in the lower left pic!)
We went anyway, not gonna let some silly sign stop us!! It was great because there was NO ONE around at all! We went maybe half a mile, I went swimming in the breathtakinggg waterfall in the entrance exhibit, & our little dog Benji kept up with us the whole time, as if he was the little leader! This was really about watching him explore in nature.

then of course, BAM POURINGGG RAIN!!!! Thunder, lighting, and RIDICULOUSLY fast winds started.....I was so happy I was in a swim suit, but my sneakers got SOOO wet and muddy. All 3 of us were completely soaked, as was my camera & camera bag. Benji is very small, only 10 lbs (maltese) and I carried him in my arms sweater the whole way back to the car (we couldn't leave him to walk by himself! have to protect him!).

I got GREAT pics though, I'm very snap-happy all the time.
I'm a photographer (hobbyist), so all of these pictures I took BEFORE it down-poured. I was grateful we didn't go too too far away because I was scared we were going to be stuck!!!
Here is my Diorama, with various pics of adventurous little Benji trooper. I am in the bottom left corner by the "Trail Closed" sign and my husband is just behind me, if you can see on top of a tower of rocks with Benji. The left side is the mountains. The center back is the waterfall. The right side is the forest. The bottom of the diorama is the trail I tried to recreate, with a lake and little ducks that were swimming! On the way there, I saw section of rocky block spray-painted with "I love you to the moon and back", & so I put "love" on one of the rocks in the center. <3

I used photos that I took, processed and printed myself.
Rocks that I collected. (I'm always collecting rocks, leaves, flowers & things I find randomly in nature)
The blue lake is heat-transfer color foil on top of a candle jar lid, surrounded by rocks.
Everything is cemented down! (rocks don't stick well with glue!)

Enjoy the pictures!
Thanks for looking!

Much love,
Melissa Leah