Down the Hill from Gino

There is a reason that they call this Hidden Falls. It's hidden. This is just down the cliff from where Gino was today. I actually took this shot yesterday after the patio party. But yesterday was a carbon copy of today, so I'm using the photo.

As the St. Paul city site says about Hidden Falls, "The park dates back to 1887, when it was selected by Horace Cleveland, a nationally known landscape architect and park planner, as one of four major park sites for the City of Saint Paul. ..."

We played outdoors tennis today, the second time this month, beginning at about 3 pm and finishing as dark overtook this part of the state at about 4:45. The sun presented some tricky challenges, Because the trees are leafless and only branches blocked light, the shadows were blotchy. It was harder to see and accurately predict the path of a ball when the sun was up than it was after it had gone down leaving only ambient light. The cooler than normal temps made the balls less resilient and one had to hit the balls with much more gusto to get the usual result. And the little bit of wind required each player to more closely watch the ball to be able to hit it in the abbreviated sweet spot of their racket. All this made for some frustration, but also for some long and closely competed points. We managed two complete sets, 6-4, 6-3. This was preparation for the Tucson tournament. As I told Tennis Dennis, "now I'm ready to play tennis in cold weather." Not Tucson weather.

It was, however, a very fine September day in November.