Penn State, The Day Before Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving week at Penn State, and there are no classes, so campus is deserted. For the photo hounds, that can mean just one thing: a great opportunity to take lots of landscape shots without any people in them! Or at least, that's how it seems to me. :-)

It was a short work week, made even shorter by the fact that I took Tuesday off. (Freedom Tuesday, anyone? Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?) On Wednesday morning, on the spur of the moment, I decided to take advantage of the lack of crowds to have breakfast at the Corner Room.

I saw it in my mind's eye: an empty parking space RIGHT on College Avenue, directly across from the Corner Room. I am no master at parallel parking; in fact, once got a ticket downtown for parking too far from the curb.

So I wanted an easy spot. And when I drove down College Ave., I looked, and THERE IT WAS! The very first parking spot right across the road from the restaurant. Wahoo! (Hey, it's the little things . . . ) And better yet, parking on the street is free before 9 am. Double-yay.

The Corner Room is already decorated for the holidays, just lovely. I had a really nice, quick, hot breakfast there, the early bird special for $3.59 plus tax and tip. I swear, I was in and out in twenty minutes. I had a booth by a window where I could sit and look at the street (and my car). The sun came and went. Hardly any people did.

When I finished my meal, I decided to have a quick walk around, as far as I could go, as quickly as I could go. You might be surprised at the amount of ground I can cover, for a small person with a limited amount of time!

I took some photos downtown, I visited the Christmas tree at the corner of College and Allen, and I walked up to the duck pond. And I stopped along the Wall to take a few quick snaps of Old Main beneath a favorite tree before heading back to my car, and from there, off to work.

This was one of my favorite photos from my morning stroll. I like to frame Old Main beneath the outstretched branches of this tree, so that is what I did for this shot. The flag is whipping in a little breeze. Otherwise, all is quiet.

You can still see a few lingering oranges in the trees that are turning to burnt sienna, before the leaves brown up entirely and fall down. There is a sense of contentment, even happiness; of the big gathering in as autumn rolls round to winter. Peace . . .

The soundtrack: George Winston, Thanksgiving.

Bonus: a spring version of this same shot. :-)