As I related earlier I slept until 930 am this morning despite the fact that the train crossing was right outside our window--should have taken a picture! LOL But it WAS and, as is the law, every train, all night long, blared its whistle and rattled the walls of our room with each of its cars. Yet, as tired as I was, I only heard it before sleeping and once or twice during the night and fell right back to sleep. So, with check out at 11 we just made it at 1050!
Off we went to the Finger Lake region. Chose a route that brought us in to the middle of Keuka, which we followed to the top and then hit Seneca about midway also and followed it to the top. Penn Yan is at the north end of Keuka and is really kind of touristy though the bell tower on the Methodist Episcopal Church is very beautiful.
All along the shores of the lakes and in the surrounding vallies there are vineyards. They've been there forever.
I remember as a kid riding in the back seat of our buick with my sister and our dog,Rebel. Reb was an adorable black long haired dachshund who thought she was the third daughter. She sat between us and gobbled down Concord grapes with us. She didn't like the skin and would spit it out. In recent years I've read that grapes are bad for dogs--hmm, she lived to be 12 or 13 just fine. Used to chew bones, too! And loved chocolate--especially Loft's and she knew how to spell candy. But I digress.
And for each of those vineyards there is a winery which offers tasting. Dear God, if you stopped at everyone you'd be drunk for a week or else drown in whichever lake you drove off the road and into! We did not stop at any--I really wasn't interested today. I just wanted to enjoy the drive in this beautiful part of my home State on such a sunny but cold--32 degrees!--day.
The head of Seneca has the pretty town of Seneca Falls. I was going to visit the Elizabeth Cady Stanton --Womens' Rights National Historic Site--but there certainly are no good signs to find it. Soooo, that will wait for another trip--not spending time looking all over for a National Site!
Picked up Rt 20 and headed East on what used to be the major East-West road prior to the Thruway and the road we traveled often to the St Lawrence every fall as a kid. Came to the Star Diner which had an old decrepit motel behind it. Cannot remember where we stayed on these trips--could we have stayed there? Well, I don't know but I do know this place serves terrific food, lots of it and very reasonably.
As we drove along North of Cayuga Lake we noticed large nests on the top of high power line poles--this is the largest but they are all along the road--Bald Eagle and other raptor nests! Montezuma NWR has been implementing reintroduction of the bald eagle in NYS. We stopped and took a short drive in the refuge. They are redoing the tour road so we were only able to go about a mile into the refuge--up to the inlet where fish enter from the canal. Geese, a peregrine falcon eating flies and a heron sitting at the inlet just waiting for a fish to come through! Pretty neat.
Continued on 20 passing from the lakes to the farmland north toward the thruway. The electricity in the motel last night was questionable. Every time the refrigerator turned on or off the channel on TV became unavailable. What I didn't notice was that the outlet into which I plugged my battery charger apparently disconnected,too. Soooo my battery died before we reached Rome, where we are spending the night.
Betsy called after we left the refuge--was hoping she wouldn't see angry parents in a dirty house tomorrow but rather happy parents in a clean house on Wednesday. We hope so, too. And tomorrow, after lunch at my sister's in Saratoga, we will once more return to Vermont. 2012's cross country adventure will come to an end. But not before we check out Fort Stannix across the street in the morning. Till then--good night, all!
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