treasures of an autumn day

The rain let up Tuesday long enough for us to take a beautiful blustery hike in the woods with my sister and niece.  Hiking is not something they do much of at home, but they count on a hike or two when they're visiting us.  We are more than happy to oblige.

There were incredible treasures to be found in the woods...

 Quite by accident, Alissa uncovered a "cache", hidden to be found by "geo-cachers".  Geo-caching is like letterboxing, only you use a GPS system to play and instead of exchanging stamps, the finder chooses something to take away from the cache, and leaves something behind.

 I was thrilled when out of the leaves next to me crawled this beauty...she is a marbled orbweaver, and apparently they are very active at this time of year.

 

My sister's photos of the girls (taken with her I-phone) remind me so much of photos of us when we were their age.

 And she took this one of me, doing what I do when we're out in the woods, crawling around collecting souvenirs with my camera...