This photo was shared on a Facebook group I follow, called “Olean NY: Memories in Time”, which is just that: memories of the Olean, NY region through the years. This is a photo taken by drone from the top of what is locally called “Rock City Hill”, the high mountaintop just south of Olean, and one of the highest points in the region. This view is northwest, toward the village of Allegany, where I grew up.
My issues with the region aside, New York’s Southern Tier is a hauntingly beautiful place. I don’t exactly miss it, but…I do miss views like this.
Full version available here. Original Facebook post here.
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:
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.
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.
Twice in recent weeks I have taken The Dee-oh-gee to Chestnut Ridge on our Sunday adventure-nature walks. Late spring and early summer are great times to go to this particular park, when things haven’t really started to heat up or dry out just yet.
From the top of the sledding hill, you have a wonderful view–if it’s clear–of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, ON in the distance.
Notable here is the Buffalo Skyway, visible at center to the left of downtown, and the white roof of the Ralph Wilson Field House, which is the practice facility for the Buffalo Bills.
I’ve walked past this spot many, many times–and only yesterday did I notice this old utility pole.Cue John Denver: “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy…!”I love when sunlight breaks through the canopy, fifty to a hundred feet up, to light up lower trees like this four-foot sapling.I don’t know if there’s a more evocative sight than a trail winding through the forest.Two adventurers!
These are from a few weeks ago:
Sun-dappled leaves.An old well-house. These structures, built by the Works Progress Administration, dot the park.Brand-new graffiti. I’m glad for Faith and Shane, though I wonder what role cheese has to play in their romance.A pine dotted with the year’s new growth.Sunlight, from source to terminus.One of many streams. This one usually dries up by mid-July.Cones weighing down the top of this great pine.The bib pocket on your overalls is a great place for a wildflower or two!Adventurers, again. A greyhound is a fantastic fashion accessory. (The shirt is from Oahu!)
For lack of a better idea for a post, here’s a selfie from last week, followed by the results of applying several filters through an app called Prisma.
Here’s the original:
Looking very cottagecore!
This was taken at Knox Farm State Park in East Aurora. You can see the leash in my left hand: I was walking Cane that day. This was taken by a really big and particularly beautiful maple tree that’s one of my favorite spots in that park–oh fine, here’s the tree.
I think of this as “Bilbo’s Party Tree”, if you’ve read The Lord of the Rings.
Here are some of the filtered versions of the photo above:
It’s cool how each filter preserved the Hickory-stripe pattern on my overalls. I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite here!
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.
