Ithaca

We had a very nice trip to Ithaca this weekend. A big thanks to Hilary for providing us with a place to stay and for giving us an insider's tour of Cornell!

On our way down we stopped in Seneca Falls at the Women's Rights National Historical Park. This was unscheduled, but worth the detour. The Visitor's Center is next to the Wesleyan Chapel that hosted the First Women's Rights Convention in 1848, and the commemorative waterfall monument. Inside, there are life size statues of some of the leaders, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass - I was taller than everybody except him, and just about the same as him. People sure were short in the mid-1800s!

I am sorry to inform all the oenophiles among my readership that we did not stop at any of the many wineries on the Cayuga Wine Trail. Since neither of us drink much wine, the only one that tempted us was the hard cider store, but we put that off for another trip. The drive along the lake itself was nice and scenic. The leaves are still a week or two away from full turning (the paper this morning pointed out that this is because of the warm, dry summer) but there were enough to make the trees look autumnal.

We got really lucky with the weather - although it was a wee bit nippy, the sun was out for the first time all week. On our tour with Hilary we got to see the famous gorges and bridges of Ithaca, including the Bridge of Death from The Fool on the Hill, which we now have to re-read, so we can put the places together in our minds. And we got to have our picture taken with Ezra Cornell!


Dinner at the Moosewood Cafe was very good. Luckily we heeded Hilary's warning about getting there early - we arrived about 15 minutes before they began seating people - and were 2nd on the list. The place was packed soon after it opened. I think it is a good thing we don't live in Ithaca, or we would probably eat there far too often. The other thing that really impressed us about Ithaca was the Farmer's Market. I know we didn't see it at its best - a rainy, cold Sunday morning - but it was still very cool. It has a permanent shed, with stalls and booths, and is open several days a week. We bought some heirloom apples, and were tempted by much more, including the pumpkins and eggplants...


On our way home we stopped for a hike in Taughannock Falls State Park. The falls are the one of the tallest east of the Rockies. The mixed colors of the trees and the rocks were really spectacular. There wasn't a lot of water coming down - drought strikes again - but spring snow melt is supposed to be really something, and I would believe it. You probably can't tell in the picture above, because it is so small, but there are people at the bottom of the picture which might give you a sense of its height.

Anyway, we had a good time. I really liked Ithaca and the surrounding region - much more scenic than flat old Brockport, that's for sure! We will probably try to go back in the spring or early summer to do some more exploring.