Ithaca Falls and Errands

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Today was our last full day in Ithaca so we needed to wrap up a few things and get ready to leave. It was a bittersweet feeling. I didn't want to think about leaving but I knew we had to face the facts and get to moving.

Ithaca Falls

Kirby's lunch break was 2 hours again so we picked him up and we headed out to eat lunch at Ithaca Falls.

Ithaca Falls is right on the edge of Cornell's campus. As we drive through campus we saw markers for 40th, 45th and 50th reunion meeting places. Seemed they had a lot going on this weekend at the university.

You go down a hill and kind of curve to the right. If you aren't looking you will pass the parking area. It doesn't seem to be an area maintained by the parks system but I could be wrong.

There aren't any picnic tables so we just sat on benches and enjoyed our lunch. Timmy and I sat at the bench closest to the water and Jeff and Kirby sat in the bench by the walkway. As Timmy and I sat there we watched the water rush around this one bend and the rush into the center of the stream. The water was flowing so fast.

There are warning signs that warn you of the dangers of swimming in this stream. It says the creek can be as deep as 50 feet.

We started walking toward the fall and something jumped in the water. Timmy said it looked like an alligator. Jeff said it is probably some type of carp.

It is a very short walk to the fall. I would say maybe a quarter of a mile.

This is the loudest fall we had seen so far. The water was just pouring and pouring over made a mist at the bottom of the fall.

We were able to walk right up to the falls. The mist was spraying us and the force of the water hitting the bottom of the falls created a constant breeze.

As we were walking up to take our picture we saw two fish swimming up stream. They did look like some type of carp but I'm no fisherman.

We cut the lunch a little short today because Kirby had an appointment to meet with the Double Bass Professor at the University of Alabama. We met Benjamin Crofut in the lobby. We had a nice talk about what Kirby had done so far and what his future plans are. We agreed to stay in touch and come up to Tuscaloosa periodically so Mr. Crofut can provide lessons from time to time. Roll Tide! That was pretty exciting!

Afternoon and Evening

In the afternoon we stopped by a couple of wineries to pick up a couple of extra bottles and then we set out to figure out how we were going to get these wines home.

Since we are going to Canada we couldn't take 8 bottles of wine back over the boarder without paying some type of taxes. From what I read you can bring 2 bottles per person so we were over the limit.

I also found out that you cannot ship via FedEx, UPS or USPS. Something about licenses and taxes.

We stopped at a privately owned shipping company and they couldn't ship it for us either but he pointed us towards a wine shop in the Commons Area. So with very little expectations we went into the wine shop and Jeff asked him if he could ship the wine bottles that we bought at other wineries. He smiled and said, 'of course!' What? Did we hear that correctly?!?! Happy Day!! We were so excited! Jeff went to the car and got out box before the guy could change his mind. Ha! All together with the box and shipping it cost right at $30. Since we would have had to pay $25 to check it at the airport we thought that was a bargain.

We felt so accomplished and we moved into the next task, to pick up Kirby. No wait, to mail the Ithaca postcards. Oops, almost forgot with all the excitement of finding someone to ship our wine back.

After we picked Kirby up we headed to the Ithaca Commons to eat at the Mexican restaurant again per Timmy's request.

The area was packed and margaritas were flowing at every table. It was madness.

We ate dinner, picked up some t-shirts and headed back to the apartment.

While the boys were settling down I went to the laundry mat to wash clothes and Jeff cleaned up the kitchen.

I'm going to miss the little apartment and the laid back routine we had in Ithaca.

Not the most exciting day but it was another good day.

Tomorrow we pack up, go to Kirby's concert and head to Canada via a pizza joint in Buffalo.

Cheers!

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