I am writing this on Saturday, 5/17 and also Sunday, 5/18. There are plenty of pics.
Friday (The pics are from Saturday. I’ll write about them below.)
Water Exiting WG Gorge
It was raining or rainy all day. The temperature started cool and slowly dropped during the day. (The high Thursday was 80. Today the high is 65.) I was still recovering from my insane ride, which made it a great day to visit the Corning Museum of Glass. This is two museums in one. It’s a glass art museum, which has some amazing pieces, including Egyptian glass that was made back in 1400 BC when glass was “invented”. The second part is a glass science museum, which is totally geared towards kids (actually, dumb kids) and which I didn’t find interesting at all. The things people do still amaze me. There was one woman who was taking a picture of everything in the art museum with her camera phone. She wasn’t looking at the pieces, or reading the cards, or even being careful of how she framed her picture. She just shot half the case, then the other half of the case, then moved on to the next case. Very strange.
Saturday
Rainbow Falls
Today it’s sunny but still cool. I spent the day hiking. The number one attraction in the area is the gorge trail at Watkins Glen, about 20 miles from here. This was my 3rd time in WG. I parked my car there for my insane bike ride. I rode through there to get to Corning. And today I rode there to see the gorge. Unfortunately, there was an over-abundance of water in the river, and the gorge trail was closed. So I hiked the “Indian Trail” on the rim. (Hey! I didn’t give it that name.) After that I walked the trails around the Taughannock River where my cabin is located.
The first pic is of the water exiting the bottom of the gorge. The pic looks kind of “meh”, but being there is an awesome experience. It would probably help if you play some thunderous music, and crank the base. The gorge trail goes by a bunch of waterfalls, and even goes behind one, which is cool but not as cool as the Phantom cave or Zoro’s lair. The only waterfall one gets a good view of from the Indian trail is Rainbow Falls, which is pretty impressive.
Taughannock River – This doesn’t count as a water fall around these parts
Taughannock Falls – taller than Niagra
My cabin is at Taughannock Park. The river’s lower falls is the tallest waterfall in the area, taller than Niagra. I walked up the gorge trail and back to see it. Then I walked up the south rim trail and down the north rim trail so could see the upper falls also. The upper falls in some ways was even more impressive.
I took advantage of the placards and other information available and studied up on my history. Here’s what I learned. A long time ago, the Canadians were exporting duty-free icebergs. The thrifty yanks couldn’t turn down the bargain and said “We’ll take tons”. They put them in upstate NY because there’s no WiFi here and nobody would ever know, so they wouldn’t have to do an environmental impact study. The ice weighed so much, it squished the ground down. Then it melted and made the Finger Lakes. Water from the unsquished ground ran down into the lakes, cutting gorges in the rocks. The yanks decided to make the best of a bad thing and built water mills so they could make stuff here in the good old US of A instead of buying it from England. And that’s why England taxed our Tea, and that’s why we drink coffee and had our rebellion. A little while later, it flooded, washing the water mills away. That was OK because Edison invented electric lights and everybody wanted light bulbs. Glass blowers were taking their own sweet time, making artisan bulbs one at a time. So somebody built a factory to make light bulbs with machines in Corning. Then they used some of those light bulbs to light the factory and went to Detroit to get some union labor to run the second and third shift. Before long, there were so many light bulbs that there was more light than we needed and we had light pollution. But that turned out OK also because somebody else invented optical fiber and used that and the extra light to build the Internet, and now we have information pollution. I couldn’t figure out what they did with all those icebergs, but I happen to know that they use ice to make raspberry snow cones in Baltimore. I’m not sure exactly how that relates, but as they say in the TV detective shows, “There are no coincidences.” And this is just one of the things I know that a lot of other people don’t know.
I would like to tell you more, but Danita made some fabulous stew and let me take some on the trip and it’s just about heated to the perfect temperature.
Sunday
It was quite cool last night and this morning. The day started with a few showers,then slowly cleared up. Taughannock Park is about 15 miles north of Ithica. There are two more state parks just south of Ithica, plus several major waterfalls in the city itself. I decided to drive down to Buttermilk Park, which has what I think is the prettiest waterfall in the area. From there I took my bike into Ithica, hitting all the major waterfalls and also finding several very nice waterfalls that weren’t mentioned in the tourist literature. From there, I dropped down to Robert H. Treman Park, which is build around Enfield River. I walked up the gorge trail and down the rim trail. RHT is the prettiest area I’ve found around here. The lower falls are nice. The upper falls (Lucifer Falls) are quite impressive. The mill above the upper falls was built in 1850. It is not in working order, but the built that stuff to last, and last it did. The mill itself is quite similar to George Washington’s Mill. But the area along the river is beautiful country. The other stuff is just a bonus.
That’s it for now. I hope everybody is doing well.