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Published: July 24th 2022
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Sunday: A day to explore Cornell University! Cornell is located in Ithaca up on the hill from the downtown area. I've read it described as being slightly separated but still very culturally integrated in the local community. Along with just being a beuaitful campus to drive through with gorgeous buildings they have a lot of land devoted to wild life. We explored the botanical gardens which are huge- almost 20 miles of trail. We also went to the lab of ornithology which also has a really awesome website with live web cams set up for anyone not in New York. Definitely a place worth visiting for the natural landscape alone.
Unlike Saturday night our play Sunday afternoon was not canceled. huzzah! The first half of the play was really awesome with one character setting out on a mission to change the minds of 4 suburbans ladies to change their yard into permaculture to save the environment. Then about half way through it kinda turned very odd and metaphorical and both of us couldn't really tell exactly what was happening anymore. Oh well. Still good entertainment.
After the play we went to eat at Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca. This is
a restaurant for which my mom has had a cookbook from for decades- the cookbook is so well loved the cover is no longer properly connected. The restaurant opened in Ithaca in 1973 when vegetarian cuisine was first becoming a thing and the cookbook followed not long after. Definitely some delicious food- my mom had a Crepe and I had a black bean burger. Yum!
Monday: A divine day at Robert Treman state park. A 4.5 mile hike up the gorge and back down the rim trail had some fantastic views. The slogan of the town is "Ithaca Is Gorges" and these gorges seriously are gorgeous! After we hiked we had a good lunch picnic and spent the afternoon lounging in hammocs and reading a book. The weather was absolutely perfect hammock weather- mid 70s and the trees provided a nice shade. Finding a good hammock spot and having the weather cooperate is one of my favorite things. Too often you're just slightly too warm or too cold in the hammock and you can't change easily from shade to sun... but man it just lined up for the afternoon!
Only bad thing about the state park- discovering these
nasty caterpillars. They are a bad pest in upstate new york after researching it- they are devouring trees and don't seem to have much of a natural predator in the region so the last few years they have been destroying a lot of forest. They are also toxic to humans to the touch. I huged a tree in the process of setting up the hammock and my arm got a little rashy later in the day. Fortunately that's a super mild reaction- most people would get hives from touching them. Even worse, two of them hitched a ride home in my backpack and when I went to bed they hitched another ride on my kindle to my bed! So gross to discover Caterpillars on your bed at 11pm. yuck!
Tuesday: Another afternoon exploring Ithaca Gorges- this time Buttermilk falls state park. What's weird is you could once again take the gorge trail up along the waterfalls and then take the rim trail down the other side of the waterfall. It was like deja vu with trails, but the gorge does look different. What's spectacular about these gorge trails is that you round every corner and suddenly there's another gorgeous
waterfall. It's just non-stop views every bit you hike. If you were almost anywhere else each one of these views would be a spectacular destination you would hike several miles to just see. But it just never ends here. In the evening I got my mom caught up on Marvel and Spider man by watching no way home- excellent movie.
Wednesday: Has anyone heard of the craziness of the airlines and cacelling flights? Well my mom was supposed to fly out of Ithaca (small regional airport) Wednesday afternoon but there was some crazy flight changes- moved to Thursday, then the first leg was just cancelled and she was on her own to get to Newark. But ultimately it ended up that we had to drive to Syracuse (60 miles away) and she got a flight earlier in the day. It was a lovely scenic drive, just bizarre the things that are going on currently causing us to do it when it wasn't planned. After work copper convinced me to take him to petsmart (how does he do that?) after spending a miserable 10 minutes at the dog park in the rain with no other dogs (shocker).
Thursday: Finally
went and checked out the most local nature attraction- dryden lake which is only a few miles away. Unfortunately the lake has some bad algae problems so you can't swim in it but there is plenty of boating. There were also some private horse paddocks on the other side of the trail from the lake.
Friday: After some time at the much loved Ithaca dog park, copper and I walked along Cayuga lake in the waterfront park (dog park is inside the big park). There are lots of boat launches, kayak storage bars and such along the lake but also a really nice walking path which in total goes for close to 20 miles. The whole waterfront area was developed in 2002 and is a fantastic community park with playgrounds, a children's garden, baseball diamonds and more. On our walk I did hear live music in the distance and thought I'd go check it out so we walked in that direction until I heard the music stop and someone come on the microphone and announce that the bride and groom would be entering shortly. Guess the band is for the wedding reception!
Saturday:
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