August has always been my favorite of the summer months. My relationship with July has never been the best, though I admit it’s improved in the last few years. Back when I detested any temperature over, say, 73 degrees, I found July to generally be 31 days of torture where any minute spent outside the comforts of force-air cooling was akin to some form of Medieval torture. August, however? August is still warm–it can be just as hot as July–but usually August starts to see the shift toward more comfortable air, with cooler and less humid nights. Also, August is when the shortening of the days starts to be noticeable at last: I am a lover of night, and its return is something to cheer.
August is, really, the first of my five favorite months of the year. The light seems a bit more golden, and the stars begin to brighten.
Last weekend we attended the Sterling Renaissance Festival for the first time since 1999! Huzzah!!!
Knights at play!
Obviously the Festival didn’t happen in 2020, and I’m honestly not sure if it tried to happen last year, but in any event we did not attend if it did. This year, though, we finally returned. Sadly, The Wife has to wait until next year to go back! She was unable to go this year due to recent foot surgery (everything’s fine, just a tendonitis issue that needed fixing). The Renfest does the best it can, but the nature of its location–it’s literally built onto a hillside–makes it very difficult for folks with mobility issues. We just didn’t want to go through all that struggle, unfortunately.
So this year it was just The Daughter and I. Still, we had a great time. There were occasional moments when The Wife’s absence was felt, none moreso than, of all things, the roaming pickle vendor. He’s a fellow who roams around with a wagon loaded with giant, juicy pickles, which are one of The Wife’s favorite treats. Usually at some point we see the Pickle Guy and The Wife says, “You should go buy me a pickle.” And I do. Alas, ’twas not to be this time!
(In an amusing moment, at the late-afternoon joust, the pickle vendor finally sold out, so he shouted “FREE PICKLE…JUICE!” And a couple of people actually took empty water bottles to take him up on the offer. I do not always understand my fellow humans.)
This year, I finally was able to partly dress for attendance at the Faire!
Note my pendant watch…I’m representing Renaissance dress, steampunk, AND modern workwear here. Were I a knight, I would be Sir Eclectic!
Yes, I know that this outfit is anachronistic to a Faire set in a faux-Elizabethan village. The shirt is a Renfest-style shirt, though, so I was only half a walking anachronism.
(I dressed like this as an experiment, too, regarding how to dress in high heat. I’ll save those thoughts for another post. Yes, I was hot…but I don’t think shorts-and-a-tee-shirt would have made me feel any cooler.)
The drive from home to the Faire is a long one, roughly two-and-a-half hours. The first two-thirds of the drive is a boring hundred miles down the New York State Thruway, but after that, it’s a lovely drive through the hill country north of the Finger Lakes and into the Lake Ontario watershed.
I love this house and I look forward to seeing it every year as we drive by. It looks like it’s been there since the War of 1812. I don’t know a thing about this house’s history.
A trombone in a Renaissance group? Yes! While the modern trombone didn’t exist yet, the forerunner instrument, called a sackbut, was quite common.Daily parade. God save the Queen!Acrobatics and such. I didn’t see this whole performance, but just the very end when she did this.“You can’t tell a day from a knight without a program!”I scoped out my spot to watch the joust early, 45 minutes early, to be exact. By this time I was glad to sit with a cool beverage and do some people-watching.“A mighty whack?” “His skull will CRACK!”
In terms of food, we really didn’t eat much at the Faire! Our tradition is the big roasted turkey legs that are dripping in barbecue sauce. And when I say ‘dripping’, I mean, DRIPPING. I was almost successful at getting through it without getting sauce and turkey grease on my white shirt, but…yeah. Almost.
I’ve already got it washed out, thankfully! I know what to do in such events.
Later on, I enjoyed a wine slushie. This was my only alcohol at the Faire. That shit’s expensive, yo!
(On the way home we stopped for dinner, at a fried chicken joint we love in Webster, NY. We had chicken and waffles, which is a killer combo.)
Some candids I snapped:
These two had the best costumes I saw all day. The woman on the right had a stunning femme-fatale pirate thing going on. Magnificent!
The Queen and her Royal Party, taking in the jousting entertainment.A knight addresses the crowd, encouraging lusty cheers.One of the attendants for the joust.I’ve seen Milady at the Faire before. Usually she is on horseback. This time she was not.
Not a great shot. I was trying for the stilt-walker, not the fellow in the hat or what might be his family.
A fine knight, astride his noble beast!A pirate lass. Fantastic costume work here!Another fine costume. That puppet on her shoulder articulates! There’s a wire that runs down through your clothes and you can twitch the wire in certain ways to make the puppet lift its wings, turn its head, and the like. I know this because The Daughter bought one.
At day’s end, we were tired and fulfilled and happy…but also sad because the Faire was over for another year. (I mean, we could go back, there are a few weekends left, but we have other happy events coming up as well….) I did my best to look reflective and melancholy at the prospect of returning to real life after a day in an Elizabethan England that wasn’t also a rather violent realm of short lives and many poxes….
There was still some beauty to be had, though. One of my quirks regarding road trips–and there’s a very good chance that I inherited this from my father–is that on any out-and-back-again trip, I don’t like coming home the same way I went out. In this case, that means that instead of driving south from the Faire to the Thruway, I take Route 104 along the Lake Ontario shore back to Rochester, and then I-490 back to the Thruway for the last 35 miles or so. This is a lovely road that goes over Irondequoit Bay…
…and through downtown Rochester.
Alas, there comes a time when our revelries are now ended. So, we shall see you again next year, people of Warwickshire!
Oh, and the title of this post comes from, naturally enough, Camelot:
Hey folks, just a quick check-in here…I’m taking a few days off from work as my sister visits from out-of-town, so posting will likely be scarce here for a bit. Going offline is a good thing!
Meanwhile, since it’s summer, here’s Joe Hisaishi and “Summer”.
I love the full-screen shots I can take with my phone.
One of my favorite things about walking in the woods is the way the sunlight breaks through in spots, dappling the forest floor in pools of golden light while other spots remain shrouded. Here are several shots of just that:
Two shots of the Dumas Bridge, first from the southeast end, and then from the northwest. Same place, same camera, but two different vantage points make for very different moods in the photos!
Yes, I photographed a couple of photographers. I saw them several times on this particular walk. They were intently photographing things up close with those long-lensed cameras. (I enjoy my photography, but not enough to gear up to that degree…though occasionally I do find it tempting to try to move beyond the limitations of my phone’s cameras, amazing as they are, and my now seven-year-old point-and-shoot camera.)
Toward the end of our visit this big military plane flew overhead. I’m not sure what kind of plane this is.Two adventurers, one of whom is thinking about the bowl of water and the air conditioning in the car.
Every couple I’ve ever known, of every combination of people, has a hot one and a cold one.
This isn’t about looks, but about reactions to temperature. Every couple has one person who always thinks it’s on the cool side, while the other always thinks it’s on the warm side. The cold person wants to turn up the thermostat in summer, still sleeps under three blankets in July, wears layers consistently through August. Meanwhile the warm person kicks aside all the blankets except maybe the sheet, aims a fan at themselves while sleeping, and will wear exactly the right amount of clothes to keep from getting arrested for indecent exposure and not one layer more.
Conversely, in winter time, the cool person is in their element! They are comfortable most of the time and always feel fine with a light amount of clothes on, unless maybe it gets really arctic in January. This person might even wear shorts in winter and longs for the cool nights of late September and October, often trying to get their partner to let them leave the bedroom window overnight well into November. Meanwhile, the cold one? They’re unhappy, temperature-wise, from that same late September all the way to April. They will huddle under blankets while watching teevee in the living room, they will wear handwarmers and fingerless gloves while working inside in December, they will plot trips to Florida and warmer climes, and it will seem like soup is on the menu each and every time it’s their turn to make dinner.
One or the other.
Some of these depictions may seem extreme, but I know couples even more extreme than what I’ve outlined here.
Which one are you?
Here at Casa Jaquandor, I used to be Hot One while The Wife always used to be the Cold One. She’d be hankering the close the windows in October, while I’d be the one who spent the entirety of July in heat-related misery. She’d be the cold one in February, never venturing outside unless it was under the protection of a giant coat, where I’d usually just put on a t-shirt and thick sweater under my trusty overalls and call it a day.
And now, recently, we’ve switched places.
I’m not entirely sure when this started, but it’s been going on roughly a year now. I haven’t shifted quite as strongly as she has, but there are often times now when I’ll be feeling slightly chilly and she announces it’s too warm inside. She puts up a lot less argument about me running the fan at night or having the central air going in the hotter days of summer; we’ve even had a few days so far this year where we have the windows open and the air is turned off and she comes into the room I’m in and asks, “Wow, are you really not turning the air on? I figured you’d be miserable!”
Strange, huh?
And it’s not just her! Time was when I’d go from, say, Memorial Day to Labor Day and only wear overalls a handful of times. Now? Well, as I write this it’s in the upper 70s and I’m wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt under blue denim overalls. And earlier I walked the dogs! So far this summer I’ve barely worn shorts. This blows my mind. It’s not just that my tolerance for heat has improved; I’ve found that long sleeves versus short sleeves doesn’t really make a difference in my degree of misery from the heat, and I’m kind of finding that long pants versus short pants isn’t much of a factor either. Plus, overalls aren’t belted so there’s more internal air flow, I guess is a nice way to phrase it. Now, I’m not going crazy here: I won’t be wearing flannel or any of my denim shirts any time soon, and the summer is young and climate change is going to have its way with us. July is just beginning, and in my heat-hating days, July was always my least favorite month of the year. We’re due to attend the Sterling Renaissance Festival in three weeks; I’d love to be able to wear overalls with one of my poofy Renfest shirts (which are made of really light fabric) to the Faire, which is located on the side of a forested hill. We’ve only gone there once when it was well-and-truly sweltering, so…we’ll see. Fingers crossed! (And also for rocking overalls at the County Fair in August.)
Meanwhile, as I write this, The Wife is upstairs in bed, under the blankets, watching something on Netflix. (Oh, she’s recovering from a minor surgical procedure on her foot from a week ago. Nothing horrible, just tendonitis that wasn’t going to heal without surgery.) Earlier I indicated that it might get warm enough later in the afternoon to warrant turning on the A/C; she responded, “We’re not there now?!”
How about you all? Is there a Hot One and a Cold One in your relationship? And have you ever flipped the poles, as it were?
Sorry for the lack of posting the last few days. June was a rather difficult month–not bad, mostly (except for matters of national import, of which I must honestly admit that our last good month as a nation is in the rear-view mirror), but difficult. June was full of daily-life stuff that occupied a lot of my brain cycles, and as the month drew to a close, that level of activity increased to the point that I just had to shut down my writing brain just to get through.
We’re all caught up now, though! Again, none of this was bad, but it was all at once and it all absorbed a lot of mental energy, and I’m finding that mental energy isn’t as easy to come by as it used to be. I can prop it up for a while by upping my caffeine and sugar intake, but that only works for a little while and I always feel like crap for 36 hours after doing that–and I have every suspicion that the 36-hour recovery for that behavior will become 48 before too long, and then even longer.
Anyway, I’m on a three-day weekend now, getting some R&R in, and there will be more of that in the future. Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!
And now, here’s one of our cats, touching Carla’s butt.
I’m pretty sure this is Remy, because Rosa generally won’t get this close to Carla. Hard to tell, though, because they look the same and they have the same mutant paws.
Until yesterday, I had never walked through Delaware Park.
In Buffalo, this is almost a kind of heresy. Delaware Park is Buffalo’s equivalent to New York City’s Central Park: it is the biggest of Buffalo’s public parks, the one with the most variety in terms of things to do and see, all of it tucked into an energized urban environment. I’ve driven through or around Delaware Park many times (among other things, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is on the park’s western edge), but somehow, in all my years of living in The 716, I’ve never actually stopped to spend a bit of quality time in Delaware Park.
Until yesterday.
What was more is that The Dee-oh-gee and I were there shortly after sunrise.
I am not a morning person–at least, I am not a sunrise person. We were all up that early because we had to whisk The Wife to a local medical facility for a scheduled procedure (she’s fine, just tendonitis in a foot that wasn’t responding to physical therapy), and of course we had Cane ride along with us; after depositing The Wife at the hospital where the thing was being done, I decided to take Cane someplace for a walk before heading home. I thought to go to Buffalo’s Outer Harbor, but I was in the vicinity of Delaware Park, and as I drove through it, I thought, Hey, why not walk right here?
Living in Buffalo’s Southtowns, Delaware Park is far enough off my normal beaten path that it simply has never been a destination of its own. That should probably change, and soon. For now, though, I’m happy to have been there on an early morning in June. It had been a cool night but was warming up, which made the waters misty in the golden light.
In light like that, even a distant cloud of gnats or whatever insects these were can be beautiful, as they catch the sun:
Geese:
And many magnificent trees:
The best thing I saw yesterday was a great egret. We kept interrupting this bird as we walked along the path. There it would be, fifty feet or so ahead of us, and then it would fly farther down the lake as we approached. This happened several times until finally it took wing and flew all the way back down the length of the lake; we didn’t see it again after that. But what an impressive bird this is!
We walked along the southern edge of Hoyt Lake and then we turned around and headed back. It was very quiet and serene, with only the sounds of a few joggers breaking the spell of nature and, beyond it, the sounds of traffic and a city waking up. We also saw the stage for Shakespeare In Delaware Park, which we have likewise never attended; I suppose we’ll have to see for ourselves someday if that cockpit can indeed hold the vasty fields of France.
On the way back, I stopped to pluck a single blossom, and after taking in the rising sunlight one last time, Cane and I headed home. We got back just a few minutes before my normal work day, had I worked yesterday, would have begun.
Not a bad way to pass a morning, even if I am still quite sure that I will never be a sunrise person.
ME: Hi, I was wondering if you can get my 2012 Kia Soul in for service? It needs an oil change and the ‘Check Engine’ light just came on.
MY MECHANIC: Sure, I can get ‘er in tomorrow!
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This car has a long history of the Check Engine light coming on for a day or two and then going off again for six months. This time, not so much.]
[The next day….]
ME: (on phone, around noon; our mechanic is a “drop it off in the morning and then he calls us when he’s got something to report unless we call him first” kind of guy) Hey, just checking in on my Kia Soul?
MECHANIC: Oh, hi. [I’m already sensing bad news] So the oil change is done, but the Check Engine light log referred us to an oxygen sensor. When I checked that out, I found that the flange for the catalytic convertor is rotting out…[my brain doesn’t process much of what follows because we all know what it means when the mechanic refers to your catalytic convertor in ANY context]…estimated repair cost of $2100.
ME: Huh.
[end of scene]
Some years ago I started up a dedicated savings slush fund just for car repairs, after one large repair on a previous vehicle cleaned out my entire personal savings account. This practice has proved wise over the last few years: having the money already set aside to cover stuff like a brake job or a faulty sensor will save you so much emotional and mental anguish, I can’t overstate it. My Kia Soul, though, as noted, was a 2012 model, so I’ve been aware for a while that its time of replacement was coming up sooner rather than later. I’ve also been fortunate the last two years to have no major repairs crop up, so I was able to convert some of the Auto Repair Fund to a Future Vehicle Down Payment Fund. My hopes were to make it to 2024 before starting to look around seriously for the next vehicle, but as you can see by the Dramatic Rendering above, the Car Repair Gods had other plans.
The Wife had to buy a new car herself two years ago, and she liked the sales rep at the local dealership she dealt with a great deal, so she contacted him. And that dealership is literally at the end of our street. So, appointments were made and test drives were done and long story short, yada yada yada, exeunt the 2012 Kia Soul which was originally my mother’s car. Enter my new 2019 Buick Encore!
Mr. Sulu, set a course for adventure!
Two previous cars of mine were Buicks, both of which I liked enormously, so I was predisposed to like this one. We did our test drive due diligence, though we only got to test out two vehicles (the other being a Chevy Trax). I did some online research, and this particular vehicle was a gem in the waiting, having only had a single owner and only 14000 miles on it. Not bad, considering! I’m quite happy with what I got.
But man, is this a bad time to be forced into the car purchase racket, folks.
I’m sure we’ve all heard about inventory problems and supply-chain issues, but the long and short of it is this: new cars are simply not out there in any appreciable volume, to the point where new cars are literally being made to order, with really long lead times. I know a guy at work who ordered his new pickup truck last August; he finally got his new truck a month ago. My sales rep told me of a guy who ordered a new truck of his own, just a standard bells-and-whistles Chevy pickup, with a lead time of a year. All this puts enormous pressure on the used car market, driving inventories down and prices up.
While I did get a good deal with which I am quite happy, I was very much constrained by low inventory and, therefore, fewer options. I put the question out to Facebook when this all started, and I got a lot of recommendations for good cars in response; few of those were available in my price range at all. (And while I do like buying used, because let’s be honest, you can easily replicate the New Car Smell and these days a three-years-or-less used car might as well be new anyway if the previous owner wasn’t a shit and your dealer isn’t a shyster.) I feel strongly that I was lucky to get a car I’m happy with this quickly.
(Now, I had some time; my Kia Soul wasn’t undrivable. But its issues meant that it would not pass its next New York State Inspection unless the catalytic convertor and the exhaust system were replaced, and my inspection was up in July. If the inspection had had until September, then I would have had more time to play with, alas.)
I asked my sales rep if he saw any light at the end of this tunnel any time soon, and he bluntly said, “No, I think it’s gonna be this way for a long time to come. If you think you’re going to need a car, you either need to order it early, or accept being at the mercy of existing inventory when the time comes.” Ouch.
My attitude on cars, shared by The Wife, has always been to drive them until ongoing maintenance costs make little sense. This particular repair need gave me pause, because I could have had the Kia fixed! I could have afforded it, quite painlessly. I could have bought another few years in that car. Maybe. But you never know, do you? The last brake job I had done on that car was four years ago, so that would almost certainly be coming up soon–and quite possibly before I had a chance to save up for that.
And all of that would have depleted my ability to make the down payment on the next car.
So, yes, I thought about just having the Kia fixed. But in the end–and this was a decision quickly made–it just didn’t make financial sense for me to put over $2000 into a ten-year-old car.
That Kia Soul was a good car. We had a lot of good times in that car…or, we drove to a lot of good times in that car. The Soul was never a car that I would have chosen for myself had I been buying new; it was just a bit small for my tastes. But it was reliable and comfortable (for me, anyway; The Wife had other opinions) and The Dee-oh-gee liked it a lot. Here’s hoping the new Encore serves as well. There’s a solid chance–maybe just this side of unlikely, but still within possibility–that this vehicle sees me through to retirement. We’ll see.
(What would I have purchased had inventory and money not been factors? Either a Subaru Outback or a Crosstrek. I’ve long been a Subaru fan.)
(Oh, and not long ago I considered a ‘Reverse Camera’ a gimmick. Now? I love it!)
(Kudos to my sales guy for always being willing to listen to “Yeah, I don’t like this.” He openly said, several times, “Look, you gotta like your car!” And another time, “I am not the kind of guy who wants to put you in a car you don’t like because I get a sale.” That meant a lot. One model Trax he showed me didn’t come with cruise control; I said before I got in the car, “Yeah, I need cruise.” He said, “OK, this car’s out, then.” I don’t use cruise control all the time, but I want it there for when we’re doing long stints on the monument to ennui that is the New York State Thruway. I am surprised to learn that you can still buy cars without cruise control! I have to admit that by this point, I consider cruise control and air conditioning standard to the point that they’re just assumed. Like, I don’t know, wheels.)
(Are you self-conscious about your signature? Buy a car. You’ll get over that shit real quick. Holy shit, that was a lot of signing!)
Floor inlay map, Finger Lakes Welcome Center, Geneva, NY
I’ve been in love with New York’s Finger Lakes region pretty much ever since we moved to New York in 1981. My first sight of any of those lakes came that first summer. We moved here in June, I think–pretty quickly after I completed fourth grade in Hillsboro, OR–and when we got here my mother had to do a bit of coursework to fulfill the requirements for her new teaching job in this state. This meant trekking from Allegany to Geneseo, NY, mostly every day for the summer. Sometimes my sister and I would stay home, other times we’d go along; and while Mom was in class, Dad and I would go off exploring.
Nowadays, whenever The Wife and I drive eastward into the Finger Lakes region, when we arrive in Geneseo via US 20A, I always consider that little college town to be the western “gateway” to the Finger Lakes region. Just east of Geneseo lies Conesus Lake, the westernmost of the eleven Finger Lakes. It’s also one of the smallest, but that was the first one I saw, way back when. Nearby are undeveloped Hemlock and Canadice Lakes, left undisturbed because they are sources of drinking water for the Rochester urban area 30 miles north. Then there is Honeoye (pronounced “Honey Eye”), which is another very small and highly developed lake with cottages and whatnot all around. Then you’re into the central Finger Lakes, where the big ones lie: Canandaigua (near the shores of which is the 4H Camp that housed the summer music camp I attended several years and then worked at several more as a counselor), Keuka (with its unique Y-shape), and the two biggies, Seneca and Cayuga (biggest and second-biggest, respectively).
The central lakes are big enough that they famously create their own microclimate in their long, narrow valleys, a microclimate that is ideal for the growing of wine grapes: hence New York’s excellent wine production. At the southern end of Cayuga Lake is my beloved dream hometown of Ithaca, while at the northern end of Seneca lies another town we love, Geneva. Around these lakes lie many other wonderful places: Watkins Glen, Seneca Falls, Aurora, Trumansville, Taughannock Falls, and more.
The Finger Lakes were a no-brainer for a location when I was thinking about booking a getaway for The Wife and I on our 25th anniversary (now several weeks back).
After doing some searching, I booked a cottage in Watkins Glen, directly overlooking the lake itself, and then while there, we used that cottage as a base for some exploring. We went to Ithaca for a day to see things that we usually don’t see because we always go to Ithaca in the fall for the Apple Harvest Festival, and then the next day we drove south to Corning to visit the Museum of Glass, a world-class attraction that I have spent the better part of the last 41 years within a two or three hour drive and yet never been. And also, we ate pretty damned well, too.
Seneca Lake from Fulkerson WineryWine tasting. We bought six bottles here at the start of our trip. We came home with two.Seneca Lake, looking north from the dock at our cottage property.To get to the dock you have to walk across a street, down a flight of wooden stairs, then across these tracks (which are still in use as there is a literal salt mine a mile up the lake). Not an impediment in any way! In fact, this made the place feel even more old-school and rustic, in a way.
A pretentious pose. If I ever do an acoustic indie-rock album (and I will not, mind you) this might be my cover art. OR, this could be the photo that accompanies a news magazine profile of the grizzled guy who watches the time go by from the shores of his beloved lake….I love when you can see far enough and it’s just cloudy enough that you can see sunny patches on the distant hills.Looking toward the village of Watkins Glen. It was still too early for there to be a lot of boats out yet; I imagine that starts up in earnest on Memorial Day Weekend. Note the passing rain clouds in the valleys to the south. I had issues, growing up in New York’s Southern Tier, but those forested hills are really something special.Morning reading, before The Wife got up.There is a LOT of public art in Ithaca.The Chanticleer in Ithaca. I love their sign and I photograph it anew almost every time we’re there. Never been inside (it’s a bar).Chicken and waffles at Waffle Frolic. We ADORE this place. We tried going last fall, but we missed them by half an hour, not having realized that their pandemic hours had them closing at 1pm! We were NOT going to fail THIS time. The orange sauce is their maple hot sauce; the other one is maple syrup. And YES, you use BOTH. I could eat this weekly.The Odyssey Bookstore is one of Ithaca’s newest bookstores, having opened in 2020, just as the pandemic was starting up. Ouch, that timing…but they appear to be going strong! It’s a lovely little place in the basement of an old house, just beautiful for browsing. We only stopped in one bookstore this trip. I had to control myself SOMEHOW.My book haul from Odyssey. Yes, for me this is “self-control”.The “waterfront” at the Ithaca Farmers Market. We’d never been to this market, and it was wonderful! Everything a farmers market SHOULD be. (Among other things? Multiple people wearing overalls! I always feel like I’m amongst my people when I’m in Ithaca.)Cayuga Lake, looking north from the top floor of the Herbert F. Johnson Art Museum in Ithaca (at Cornell). Wonderful views from up there. (And great art! Check the Flickr album for some of that.)
Ithaca, from the top floor of the Herbert F. Johnson Art Museum (Cornell). What a beautiful city Ithaca is. I could move there TOMORROW. (Well, next week. I’d need time to pack.) I only recall going to Ithaca a few times as a kid…with all the road-tripping we did, I wonder why Ithaca wasn’t a destination more often….
On Day Three we had breakfast at this butcher shop-and-eatery in Corning. Fantastic. We’d been planning to pick up something to grill (our cottage came with a grill) at the local grocery store in Corning, but we ended up buying two thick pork chops from here instead. Loved it.
Several items from the Corning Museum of Glass. More in the Flickr album. (MANY more. I took a LOT of photos that day. This museum is fantastic. We spent hours there and didn’t even see everything!)Apparently in 1972 the Chemung River flooded BADLY in Corning and environs, resulting in considerable damage to the Museum of Glass. The Museum is only about a thousand feet from the river. This must have been devastating.Another sun-dappled hill.This fascinated me. It’s across the side-street from the ice cream place we visited in Watkins Glen. I wondered about that steep garage-door ramp thing. It turns out that this is the access entrance for cars to be driven up into, and out of, the upstairs showroom of the REALLY old-school car dealership which is in downtown Watkins Glen. The building still is a car dealership, though the upstairs showroom isn’t in use for that purpose anymore. Watkins Glen’s long automotive history is still apparent!
Two views from our last night there.A stop on the way home at the Rasta Ranch Winery, a favorite of ours. The place is 60s-themed, very Woodstock. More wine bought here. (We were unable to stop during our wine tour back in February.)From the Rasta Ranch (on the east shore of Seneca Lake) we could see the rain clouds approaching from the west. The day ended up being pretty much of a washout. We’d planned on a slow sight-seeing kind of drive home; that didn’t happen, sadly. Alas! A lovely weekend, though.Pouring rain at Geneva. This is the northern shore of Seneca Lake, looking south; usually you can see for quite a distance. Not so THAT day. We’ll be back, though!
The whole Finger Lakes region isn’t just beautiful, with forests and high hills and deep valleys and waterfalls and streams and wineries and those gorgeous lakes, but it’s also by its very rugged nature something of a land that time forgot. The very geography and geology team up to make the entire region pretty much impervious to that enemy of all such onetime resort meccas, the four-lane highway. You can pretty much speed past the entire region to the north (via I-90) or the south (via I-86) in about 90 minutes, or you can get off the infernal expressways and take the twisting two-lane roads that run along high ridges before plunging into lake-filled valleys. You’ll drive past old places that were once bustling stops along the railroads that aren’t so bustling anymore, but the places endure, somehow.
