Day 3 - Finger Lake Frolic

This is the day where the geographical features sneak up on me.

I'm just not used to huge lakes running north to south, tucked in between small mountains. Lots of farmland, and Amish enclaves, but definitely not like home. The trees, the soil, the landscape, it's just so different.

And boggy areas! So much water! Look, I live on the convergence of three rivers, and we don't have that much water just hanging about. It feels like a dinner party where all the good booze is gone, and everyone's waiting for the guy with the truck to come back with wine boxes, so we're all hanging around with champagne glasses filled with seltzer and trying to act inconspicuous. Soo, how's your creek? Got a new batch of tadpoles? Ooh, the ospreys moved in? Good, good! Ah, I see the corn fields are looking fresh and green one river bank away, regular rainfall will do that to you, did you hear about our cousins down a state who are under this heat dome? Shocking, I tell you! Maybe we should invite them up for a holiday...

Smug little b*stards, wallowing in their bogginess.

The osprey nests are real, at least. Lots of them, and an adult in each nest, warily eyeing the sky for raiders. I'm sure there are eagles up here I didn't locate, waiting for a chance to pounce.

And windmills. Lots of them! Since we're going “overland,” not on the highways, we're on a lot of secondary and tertiary roads. And occasionally the landsat nav will have us take a road that's not quite paved. Which leads to close encounters with windmills of varying sizes, which thrills my hubs' engineering heart.

We got to the first squishy location early, the Glenn H Curtiss Museum. See, one of the reasons I collect squishies is because they lead to interesting locations. This is a cool museum, though we didn't have time to tour today. I fully plan to come back later, because there are squishies I missed, and there's rumors of a salt museum nearby. These are things that must be investigated! But next time. Sigh. So we waved fondly at the plane that greeted us at the museum, and did a bit of backtracking.

The Cumming Nature Center, near Naples, is a “fur piece to travel,” as Mom and I used to say. Getting to the town? No prob. Taking a tiny back road up and over a mountain, and winding around and over to the center? Adventure! Lovely woods – mainly pine and spruce, ours in the Appalachians tends to be mixed deciduous. I like the piney smell in the heat; we don't get a lot of that back home. And then there are birches, and aspens, and lots and lots of cottonwoods tossing their floofy seeds to the vagaries of the wind.

Squishie acquired there, and off again!

The Watkins Glen squishie I've been chasing for a while now. I've had friends visiting the Finger Lake region, and somehow no one was on Main Street, or missed it, or something. Honestly, it's not their job to feed into my obsession, and my trips somehow went on other routes this whole time. The town was a flipping mad house of visitors and tourists, but we managed to get a decent parking spot and walk back to the store for the squishies. And now we should get outta here and let the town to the shoppers.

And this is where we get to the downhill part of today's story.

Ithaca. Nice “city,” has more of a large town feel. I appreciate that, I really do. But the museum that I really wanted to go to was closed (and we weren't the only people skunked, judging by the people parking, checking, and leaving), and the other squishie place isn't open to the public right now. And, oh yeah, a third squishie appeared after we left!

Sigh.

Fine. Let's go look at a lighthouse.

There's a small lighthouse on the shores of Cayuga Lake, and the best place to check it out is from a particular state park / marina. It took a bit, but we finally found the exact angle to see it through the tree. Well, at least we got to see it. And facilitate. That's important, too.

But now it's time to head north and east. We have places to be on Saturday, a long ways off, so we need to get ourselves from here to there. So, go north first, then east? There's a squishie at a Bass Pro Shop in Auburn...

...and we need some camp chairs for the event in two days' time...

North it is! No problem getting there, getting chairs and squishies, and now east!

Hey, Utica's on the way, maybe get the zoo squishies? Oh. They close at 4:30, not 5. Won't get there in time. Sigh. On to Saratoga Springs, then, for a hotel room, that will put us within range of some cool spots for tomorrow. I do have their squishies already, so it's a matter of touching down after driving driving driving, lots of driving, so much driving...

Ahhh, a room that's not moving! Hot food! Hey, baseball! Watching baseball...

Zzzzzzz....