We've said it before, but it's hard to plan something special for a day like a birthday. That's because so many of our days are filled with wandering into so many wonders. But one thing that sets a birthday apart has to be a special dessert. So Mark made this very special chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake.
We also went on a special bike ride. This is the Erie Canal Tow Path Trail that stretches all the way across the state of New York. It's a perfectly flat and smooth path, and the birthday girl thinks that is the definition of a good bike trail. This is the tow path that the mules would have trod as they pulled barges up the Erie Canal in the 1800's.
We didn't ride the entire 363-mile tow path this morning. After all, Denisa is getting old. Instead, we picked a 5-mile section that started in the little town of Pittsford, New York.
Soon after we started, we came upon the New York department of transportation vehicles in the water. One boat is hoisting a scoop through the water, dredging out dirt and sand to keep the Erie Canal a suitable depth for boat travel. The tug boat in the foreground is moving a barge load of that sand to keep it close to the scoop. It doesn't take much to keep us entertained, as we enjoyed watching this process that we had never seen before.
The Erie Canal was once a thorough-fare for freight in this part of the country. But now its main customers are pleasure boats filled with tourists that want the historical experience of traveling the canal.
We got to watch as the water in the lock lifted a passenger boat. The gates at both ends of Lock #32 were closed, and the water began pouring in. In the picture below, we can see how far the water must still raise to bring it to the top of the lock.
The lock-keeper came to get the registration information from the boater. We found out that a ten-day pass to get through all the Erie Canal locks only costs $50. The normal passage usually takes considerably less than ten days. But much of the canal has a 10 mph speed limit, and waiting for so many locks to fill can make for a slow journey. So this trip across New York via boat can be painstakingly slow.
Once the water filled the lock, the yellow gates swung open so the boat could continue westward on their journey.
Then the gates swung shut and they began pumping water out of the lock once again. We had experienced another piece of history as we sang, "if ya ever navigated on the Erie Canal."
Our real destination today is the Rochester Airport, since we are picking up Denisa's Mother, Betty, for a week-long visit with us. We took her first to one of Denisa's favorite things--the local lighthouse. Denisa and her Mother are standing out front because it was closed for repainting this day.
The lighthouse is right on Lake Ontario, so we took a walk down to the beach to watch the boats coming into the Rochester Bay. We also did some birthday present shopping while we were in Rochester. After shopping, Denisa's pretty excited that Mark ordered her gift that will be delivered in a few days.
Our birthday tradition is that you get to eat your birthday dessert for breakfast, so we started the day with a slice of chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake. The birthday girl also got to pick where we would eat dinner. Denisa's not sure that she chose wisely, as we ended up at Nick Tahou's cafe for their signature dish. We have read from several sources that visitors to Rochester must eat a "garbage plate" at Nick's. That would be made by combining home fried potatoes and macaroni salad, covered with a choice of hots (hot dogs), cheeseburger, or chicken and then chili sauce.
Eating a garbage plate was an experience, but next year she thinks she will go a tad more elegant than a garbage plate. We got back to the motor home after dark, so Denisa had a good long birthday celebration. We'll tone down the hiking and step up the touring for the next week as we entertain Denisa's Mother--an 86-year-young traveler staying with us.
We really enjoyed our time among the grape vines in the finger lakes region of New York, but it was time to move to our next campground close to the Lake Ontario coast. We are camped at Cherry Grove Family Campground, Wolcott, New York--another Passport America park with half-price rates during the week. That will fit our schedule well, and we started exploring our new home as soon as we got the motor home parked. We were driving toward Chimney Bluffs State Park, when we noticed a curious-looking vineyard.
We could see the supporting posts and the horizontal wires like the many vineyards we had seen in the finger lakes area. But these grape vines were shaped differently, and the grapes were bright red. Wait! These were actually apples trees! But they were planted about 18 inches apart and seemed to be trellised on the wires. We're going to have to do some research on this.
We arrived to our destination for an evening hike (and to make use of our New York state park pass) right on the banks of Lake Ontario.
We traveled up the beach until we got to the highlight of the state park--the chimney bluffs.
The bluffs were interesting to see from beach level, but we really enjoyed seeing them from above. So we hiked back on the rim trail that hugs the edge of the eroding cliffs. That's Denisa standing on the edge of the cliff in the upper right hand corner.
The state park says, "These bluffs are a large clay drumlin that was formed by a glacier, then eroded by wind and water." We say that they are another of God's wonders. Some of them are just a thin fin when we viewed them from the top.
And we could get quite close to that thin blade from our perspective on the cliff trail.
Towering 150 feet over Lake Ontario, the fins of Chimney Bluff made an interesting ridge all the way down to the water.
The sun was lowering in the sky and lighting up the west-facing bluffs in such a way that we just couldn't quit taking pictures.
In each picture, you can see one of us in the upper right hand corner, just to give some sense of scale to these grand bluffs.
It was about this time that we realized that we were going to miss the sunset, unless we hurried to hike around the peninsula. We just made it off the cliff trail and across the beach as the sun was sinking into Lake Ontario.
From what we have already seen around our new home in Wolcott, New York, we are already convinced that we have wandered into more of His wonders. We think we're going to like it here!
We usually have some loose plan of what we want to do each day, but this particular weekend we didn't. After attending the zucchini, melon, and Scottish festivals in the last three weekends, we were a little disappointed that we hadn't found a Saturday festival in this area. As we drove out of the campground that morning, we stopped by the office to meet Bill. Bill is the gentleman that bakes the friendship bread for each new camper, and we wanted to tell him thank you. That's when Bill explained that he was heading down the road to Interlaken, where his band was playing at the Plowing Days Festival. All of a sudden we now had a plan for our day.
The pictures above almost looks like Christmas with all those red and green tractors. But it's just September, and Mark is checking out the long line of farm implements. Of course, plowing days can't happen without an old tractor parade, complete with hay bales for spectator seating.
In case you would assume that all the people interested in restoring these vintage tractors are men, there was a woman driver in the parade as well.
This guy couldn't stop wth restoring just one tractor, so he had 5-tractor-train in the parade.
Around here, not all farm work is done with tractor power. So the parade also included yoked oxen.
We liked that this family brought some of their pets to the parade.
Some of the yoked teams were young calves in training. These two guys are named Lewis and Clark, and we met them in the barn before the parade.
This big red barn was the center of activities. Built in 1908, it is still standing proud. We have been admiring the big barns in this area, so it was fun to see one up close.
Today the top floor was filled with displays of quilts and fruits and vegetables.
We saw apples from the area with historical names like northern spy, sweet bough, maiden blush, porter, and lamb abby pearmain. There was also a veterinarian giving a presentation about milk production practices at local dairies. Then we saw how farmers in the early 1900's used simple but ingenuous machines to move their hay into these tall hay lofts. It was a very educational day filled with Americana.
Denisa's favorite part of the festival were the animals. A local alpaca farm brought two of their males, and the owners were so willing to answer all the questions a lady from Oklahoma could think up. Denisa learned a lot about their wool and the process of raising alpaca, but she thinks they would be fun to own just because their faces look like cute little stuffed animals.
Not normally social animals, their owner was allowing them to be fed alfalfa today so they wouldn't mind being close to the people feeding them. Alfalfa has too much protein, and a solid diet of it will make their wool too stiff. But for today we were spoiling them with alfalfa candy.
Mark's favorite part of the festival was the Amish baked goods. He is proud to say that he has found the fruit-filled fried pies that he has been craving since eating them last summer in Colorado. He also bought a pan of pecan sticky buns, so we are well supplied with sugar and calories this week.
Plowing Days wouldn't be finished without some real plowing. So after the parade, the tractors pulled into the field and started turning over the dark rich soil. These old tractors aren't just for looks, they can also do the work!
Denisa took a ride around the field in the hay wagon, so she could see the plowing up close. They made an announcement that children needed to have an adult with them to ride the hay wagon, so Denisa had to borrow a child to ride.
The tractors weren't the only source of horse power in this plowing extravaganza.
To finish up the festival, we watched the one-hour concert of the Christian band--Cross-eyed Fish. Our new bread-baking harmonica-playing friend Bill explained they came up with the name because they are fisher's of men with an eye on the cross. They were very good, and we determined that we could two-step to Christian music in a barn loft.
Today we spent several hours at a festival that we didn't even know existed this morning. Since we were in the neighborhood, we also stopped in at the Lively Goat Farm and did a goat cheese tasting. Mark has determined that he likes fruit pies and sticky buns more than goat cheese.
The only thing we really had planned for today was a trip to Taughannock Falls State Park. The falls were named by the local Indians, and it's pronounced Tug-a-nock. The pictures on the brochure shows the grand 215-foot vertical waterfall splashing into a water basin at the end of the gorge. But when we arrived at the overlook, there was no splashing--in fact there wasn't even enough water to wet all the rocks.
We drove down to the gorge, and took the 3/4-mile hike through the trees to see the waterfall from ground level.
As we walked out of the trees, we now had the 200-foot gorge walls around us. There was also supposed to be a raging river, made from the water going over the falls. But instead, we were walking on a dry river bed. One of the tiny dots at the bottom of the rock wall is Denisa, feeling very small and surprisingly dry.
Since we made the walk, we took another picture at the base of the falls. We are hearing over and over that people haven't seen the falls of upstate New York looking like this for many years.
From our hike at Taughannock Falls, it's just a short walk to the edge of Cayuga Lake--one of the biggest of the finger lakes. It's a cloudy day with chances of rain, and we know this part of the country could really use a good rain. The finger lakes that we have seen look very full, and that is because they are fed by underground springs instead of rain water.
Denisa is still chanting, "Changing leaves!" as she spots pretty fall foliage. That chant is happening with more and more frequency. In fact, sometimes it's hard to get a full sentence out without a comment about the leaves around us. So we end our random day of gems we have wandered into here on the finger lakes with a picture of "changing leaves!"
Hiking at Watkins Glen was at the top of our list of things to do in this Finger Lakes region of New York. So our first morning we headed south to the city of Watkins Glen, and the state park that bears the same name. The first steps of the hike took us through a tunnel, and then over a bridge into one of the most beautiful gorges in the world.
Pictures just can't do Watkins Glen justice, but that didn't stop us from taking a hundred pictures anyway. Part of the beauty of the gorge is its grand size. So we tried to have a person in each frame just to give some sense of scale. Denisa got nominated to be in most of the pictures, simply because her bright red blouse shows up well even at a distance. So the red dots in most of the pictures are actually a full-size Denisa.
When Mark is in the picture, his brown shirt blends in with the shale gorge walls. It's almost a "Where's Marko" game to try to find him in the picture. He's in there, sitting on the wall.
We saw notices posted at the state park that informed visitors that New York is going through its worst drought in 14 years. So the amount of water flowing through the glen is very low. There are 19 waterfalls on this trail, but some of them were more likely called water-trickles today.
There are two waterfalls that have a shelf behind so we could walk under the fall.
We could see evidence of the effects of a much stronger water flow that carved swirling patterns in the water-sculpted rocks.
Some of those swirls were even heart-shaped.
The CCC built some nice stone steps and walls in this park in the 1930's. That would include handsome arching bridges and spiral staircases.
One section of the gorge is tighter, and has been named "The Narrows." Shaded by the tall rock walls, this area has its own rain forest micro-climate that grows ferns and mosses.
We were hiking on a weekday, after Labor Day, and we were surprised at the number of people at Watkins Glen with us. We're guessing that a Saturday during the summer would be very crowded.
As we came to the end of the one-mile trail, we both had to agree that this was one of the most beautiful short hikes we had ever experienced.
Walking from the main entrance meant climbing up more than 800 steps, so we noticed some people having a hard time on the hike.
During the summer, a shuttle runs to the upper entrance, that would allow for a one-way downhill hike. But arriving after Labor Day meant that our only option was walking both directions. We chose to climb out of the gorge and hike the rim trail back to the car. That gave us another view of the beautiful Watkins Glen from the top.
That awesome hike would have been a great ending to a fulfilling day. But it was too early and there was another state park in the neighborhood. So with our New York state park pass, we also stopped at the Robert Treman Park at 2:30. This park has a four-story grist mill to tour, and Mark is standing among a few of the wooden gears used to power this mill from the 1800's.
There was some vandalism in the old building before it became part of the state park. Mark obviously didn't do the graffiti--the handwriting is much too neat.
There is a gorge trail at this park too--complete with CCC brick work. We would have been in awe on this hike if we hadn't just walked through Watkin's Glen.
We hiked along giant gorge walls, and again Denisa is the designated person in the picture to show the size of that wall.
The highlight of this trail is a view of Lucifer Falls, with a drop of 115 feet. It must be an amazing roar in the spring when the water levels are high.
The problem with a gorge trail is that there is always the steps that must be hiked back up. There were hundreds of stone steps as we made our way out of the gorge.
After all those steps, we found ourselves now far above Lucifer Falls. Those dots on the trail are members of a family, standing at the top of the falls where we had stood just minutes before.
Our legs are tired from all the steps of today, but we are just a few miles away from another famous New York State Park--Buttermilk Falls. So at 4:30 we drove into our third state park of the day. We saw pictures of this natural cascade covered with water, and it was beautiful. Today there was just enough water trickling down the stone face to keep it wet. We saw several people stop by, amazed because they had never seen this much-loved falls look this way.
The popular swimming area was completely dry, so it really didn't need a sign to keep people out of the non-existing water. We had heard about the drought that New York was experiencing, but today's fall views really drove it home to us.
Buttermilk Falls is just a few miles outside of Ithaca, New York, and we know that is the home of Cornell University. We love to explore a large university, and Cornell has us intrigued. They have a "dairy bar" in one of the classroom buildings on campus, so we set the GPS to take us there. It's 5:30, so all the machines are cleaned and put to rest for the day. But we found out that Cornell has its own dairy processing plant right on campus! They can pasteurize and homogenize the milk that is produced on the Cornell University dairy that is about a mile away. The cows there are cared for by students in the veterinarian program at Cornell. They also make yogurt, cheese, and ice cream here as part of their food production curriculum.
You might notice that Denisa is clenching a container tightly in her hand in the picture above. We had already discovered the dairy bar store, and bought some of that student-made ice cream. In fact, it is also student-designed. There is a food science class that has an assignment of discovering new ice cream recipes, and designing how they are produced, financed, and marketed. The winning new flavor will be available at the dairy bar for the next year. Today we chose some of the past winners--Bavarian Raspberry (vanilla custard with old-fashioned fudge pieces and raspberry swirl) and Big Red Bear Tracks (vanilla with brownie pieces and a caramel swirl).
In the next corridor we find that Cornell also has a vineyard and winery program for its students. They spend time with the grapes on the vine and in the wine. All this fancy stainless steel machinery allows them to make state-of-the art wine that they can't sell. The university's winery license allows the students to analyze the wine for educational purposes only.
The dairy cow mascot is now bolted safely to the floor of the lobby. It seems she was kidnapped from her home outside several times, with ransom notes sent from many places.
It's almost 7:00, and the picnic we packed today wasn't very filling. Normally, we are home by now, but our day has stretched long with one new discovery after another. Now we are in downtown Ithaca, discovering the pedestrian street filled with trendy restaurants and boutiques and lovely flower displays. This college town has a great downtown vibe too.
Very often we start the day with a rough plan of where we want to go. But when we visit such interesting areas, it's hard for us to just drive by things we want to see. We left the house eleven hours earlier, and we were tired by the time we got home. Who knew this retirement life would be so exhausting?
