Manifest Destiny (PA): 2014

Fall is truly Pennsylvania's season.

Pictured: The look of no fun.

Winter's brutal cold makes it difficult to partake in anything fun outside. Even the winter sports such as skiing, snowboarding and tubing are fun until the snow starts to melt inside your clothes, and you are left feeling like a sad sponge. Heating bills in the triple digits also dampen even the strongest holiday spirit.

Pictured: Boredom times four. The season?
Spring.

Spring is a nice exit from winter, but the transition often brings times of random hot and cold. Pennsylvanians know this best when the temperature one day is 65 degrees, and the next day there's snow on the ground.

This sporadic change in temperature always makes scheduling parties and cookouts outside on holidays like Easter and Memorial Day a gamble.

In some cases, the weather is so crappy that we never experience a spring i.e. last year's "polar vortex" and the change to 90 degrees almost a week later.

The best thing about spring is witnessing the trees and plants budding and blooming, but sometimes that is prolonged by an eternal winter. Many of the trees were still bald by June this year, leaving many to wonder if the leaves would start changing color after Christmas.

Don't be fooled; we're actually having a boring time
here. Who likes the beach after all?

Summer is usually one of my favorite seasons but only because I can travel to places where there are fun outdoor activities.

Pennsylvania lacks a beach (other than lake beaches, but anyone will tell you a lake "beach" and an ocean beach are incomparable).

Summertime is all about visiting the shore. My family has based whole summers around going to the beach.

But the weather in summer can be brutal, as well. Ninety degrees and humid sucks no matter where you're at. There are plenty of summer activities in Pennsylvania, but summer has always been a season of escaping the norm by going elsewhere.

Trees changing color last year in
Chimney Rocks Park near Hollidaysburg.

Now we're back at fall.

The weather in fall, like spring, varies. The difference is we're transitioning from hot to cold instead of the other way around. This means there are less days when all you want to do is barricade yourself inside your home with a shield of blankets and a space heater sucking up more electricity than New York City.

The cooler days are inviting after a long, brutally hot summer. We can start to dress in warmer, more stylish clothing other than just tank tops and shorts, jorts or whatever fashion crime-against-humanity is in style that year.

My friend, Alan, wades through a sea
of orange leaves in the woods near the
Big Wapwallopen Creek in Mountain Top.

Fall also welcomes a change in great food. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin beer, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pumpkins, pumpkin pumpkins-infused with pumpkin are just a few examples (did I forget about pumpkin?). Apple cider, apple pie and caramel- or candy-coated apples also sweeten up the autumn months.

Let's not forget that the best holiday of the year takes place in fall -- Thanksgiving. I'd say it's Christmas, but America prides itself on gluttony more than any other nation in the world. Thanksgiving commemorates the tradition of gorging on 95 percent of the food chain within a few hours. The day is followed by Black Friday, which signifies the beginning of the holiday season, sales, extended shopping hours and numerous, cheesy Christmas ads. Who can't get excited about that?

Two trees standing out from the rest
in a parking lot at Prince Gallitzin
State Park.

The greatest feature of fall, and the reason it's so widely recognized in Pennsylvania, is the foliage. It's astonishing to think how many tourists come and spend money in Pennsylvania just to see a change that happens every year in the comfort of our own backyards. Yet people book hotels, drive hundreds of miles and base their work and school schedules around seeing trees that we otherwise have no qualms about chopping down for the sake of wood products and, in my mom's case, to avoid raking leaves.

But fall foliage does have a special place in many people's hearts, even for those who have lived in Pennsylvania all their lives.

It's symbolic of the change from summer to fall. It tells us that there is no more beach time. If it's still "five o'clock somewhere" for you at this point, then that probably means you should schedule an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting around six o'clock.

Foliage is a sign that it's time to take things down a notch and to appreciate life at a much slower, relaxed pace.

The leaves were just beginning to fall
on this trail at the Allegheny Portage
Railroad National Historic Site
in early September.

It makes us reflect on not just how nature changes, but how we as individuals change. In nature, this change happens in small increments over an extended period of time -- from one red leaf to a sea of crimson, orange and gold.

Life operates in a similar fashion. We often fail to recognize how we change as human beings until these alterations make themselves more vibrant. It can be as small as a new haircut to becoming a more generous, caring individual.

Perhaps not everyone shares in the same feelings about fall. For some, it means only back pain from persistent leaf-raking and trying to get the smell of moth balls out of their fleece jackets and winter coats. To me, I find myself enjoying every day it's autumn until the last leaf falls to the ground.

And when that happens, I always find myself releasing a sigh, wishing that last leaf could have held on just a bit longer.

A view from shore-to-shore at Glendale Lake in Prince Gallitzin State Park.

A man boats on Glendale Lake at Prince Gallitzin State Park.

One of the chimney rocks in Chimney Rocks Park last fall.

Leaves flow down the Big Wapwallopen Creek in Mountain Top.

Chimney Rocks as seen from Route 36 in Hollidaysburg last fall.

The Blair County Courthouse as seen from the top of Chimney Rocks Park last fall.

Leaves rustling in the wind on top of Chimney Rocks Park.

Cassidy and I made a return trip to Pittsburgh about two weeks ago as part of a mini-summer getaway. The city is so big that we had to make a list beforehand of places we wanted to visit.

We originally had the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium in mind as one option, even though we've visited it before. Both of us enjoy animals, and the Pittsburgh Zoo has a great selection -- in addition to it being one of the few zoos to have its own aquarium. However, we wanted to try something new this time around.

That's when we remembered Pittsburgh has the National Aviary -- a "zoo" dedicated solely to birds. I have always been fascinated with birds, especially since my family has owned a cockatiel for the past few years.

He's a pet cockatiel with the heart of a soaring eagle.

We decided to make the aviary the first destination on our trip. After visiting it, I can say it was the best way to start our mini-vacation.

The aviary has an impressive assortment of birds -- about 500 birds spanning 150 species, according to its website. The birds are divided into regions, including grasslands, tropical rainforests, wetlands and more. These rooms are climate-controlled to imitate the habitats the birds came from. For example, the grasslands room was hot and dry, while the tropical rainforest exhibit was boggy and warm.

In almost all of the exhibits, the birds were free-roaming. Several of them darted past us, just inches from our heads as we walked around. Others sat on top of branches or speaker posts watching with curiosity. In most cases, the birds went about their business without interruption, as if the groups of people nearby were nonexistent.

I could ramble on about all the types of birds and the exhibits, but I took so many photos for this post that I'm going to switch my focus from text to art.

These are just a few of the birds out of the several Cassidy and I saw on our trip. I recommend anyone visiting Pittsburgh who likes birds to take some time to stop at the National Aviary. We got through the entire aviary in less than two hours, and the prices for parking, admission and food were reasonable.

For additional information, you can visit the aviary's website here for rates, events and more. Enjoy the photography.