If you've never been to the Finger Lakes Region of Central New York, you may enjoy seeing these photographs.
 |
| Libe Slope at Cornell University, looking down to Cayuga Lake |
 | ||||||
| Looking to opposite direction. That's Ithaca, New York in the valley |
 |
| The overlook, gazing down at Taughannock Falls near Trumansburg, NY |
 |
| Taughannock Falls from the walkway |
 | ||||
| Standing at Taughannock Falls looking up towards the overlook |
 |
| One of the walkways at Treman State Park, Ithaca, New York |
 | |||||||||||||||
R, CH, T standing above a small falls, Treman State Park, Ithaca, NY
|
What a beautiful place! Although I haven't been to the Finger Lakes region, my guess is that my ancestors on my mother's side visited there. They lived in Rochester. In August 1973, my boyfriend and I drove from the San Francisco Bay area to the Atlantic Ocean. We lived near Walden Pond that winter and then returned to the West Coast. I wonder if I still have the map of the route we took. The only place in the many states that we visited that I felt a sense of being at home (meaning Northern California) was somewhere in the woods in Central New York. I believe we were south of the Finger Lakes region. All I remember clearly is buying ice cream on a hot dry day in a small town that felt peaceful and welcoming. The air was clear and the woods were fragrant. The sky was unusually blue. I'm struck by how much your photos remind me of the part of Washington State where I live, especially the first photograph.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew what small town you were in back then.
DeleteUpstate is some of the most peacefully beautiful land in this country.
ReplyDeleteIt really is beautiful. I miss it a lot. But Florida is dramatically different enough that I don't compare them to each other. Both have their own special beauty.
DeleteThis will sound so completely ignorant, although in my defence I've never been to New York state, but I only imagine New York to be the city of New York. And New York city is only what I see on TV in the news and shows.
ReplyDeleteIt's very beautiful and thank you so much for opening my eyes and sharing. It doesn't look so different from here.
I was the same way until I moved there. I was shocked at how beautiful it was.
DeleteWow!!! Stunning. I want to go.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite lovely. There are three amazing state parks just in Tompkins County. I only showed you pictures of two of them. And there is also Cayuga Lake, and crazy little hippy Ithaca that I love so much.
DeleteNow I am homesick! July and August are my favorite months in Ithaca and the Finger Lakes. Thanks for the vivid memories.
ReplyDeleteThey are probably the most beautiful months if you don't count the period between Sept 15 and Oct 15 when autumn is screamin' color.
DeleteSuch a short growing cycle, tho...
DeleteWell, I'm a little prejudiced about how beautiful the Smokies are in the fall. It's my favorite season in the mountains where I grew up.
DeleteThe Great Smokey Mountains are quite stunning. I have never seen them in fall. Adding that to my bucket list.
DeleteWow! It's so beautiful there. I never had a chance to explore that region when I was growing up back in NJ. It's so wonderful to see this.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever get the chance... You would love it.
DeleteI lived in Binghamton for quite a few years and my daughter went to IC. It is beautiful country although I always wished it had more (any) public transportation options.
ReplyDeleteRecently I met a well traveled woman from Dallas who had visited there and thought it one of the most beautiful places she had seen in the country, although she was stunned to learn of all the fences that had been erected to prevent suicides by students jumping into the gorges.
I guess no place, no matter how beautiful, is perfect.
Yes, the whole fence thing is pretty ridiculous. It all comes down to "risk management" and insurance companies dictating these sorts of things. Cornell actually strung up netting under their bridges that spanned the gorges on campus.
DeleteAbsolutely stunning! Thank you for sharing them. 💕
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome.
Deletehave not been yo that part of New York. It is enchanting.
ReplyDeleteYou would love it.
DeleteYour pictures are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI am a NY native and love the state. We have visited the Hudson Valley often to see my childhood friend. It is lovely and there are so many interesting places to see. And expweience. We have also gone on vacation to the Finger Lakes. That was so much fun.
NYS is really different than most people think. I am happy you have been there.
DeleteWow -- what a blast from the past for me! I've been to Ithaca (twice) and even to Taughannock Falls and Treman State Park! It's a beautiful area. I'd live there in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteI lived there for nearly 40 years. It was a great joy to raise a family there. I love hearing that you've been there!
DeleteI had a friend who lived in Boston, later he married a woman whose parents lived in Wayland, NY state, where I was usher at his wedding. We were living in Pittsburgh and both these destinations were a long way away by my standards - 572 miles (9 hr 10 min) to Boston; less to Wayland but more of it on subsidiary roads. The recommended route eschewed the twisty, old-fashioned expressway which was nearly always jammed with traffic and took us a good way north before joining the interstate I-84.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, the sixties, these were burdensome journeys but now they are done, never to be repeated, I can revel in the memory, seduced by a wide straight road that wilfully took us away from all signs of artefact (other than the I-84 itself), plunging east through endless forest. The road seemed purposeful and direct and thereby quintessentially American, hinting at the scale of the country you live in and its frequent remoteness.
Plus exotica. "Oh look, look," said VR excitedly. I couldn't, I daren't, hypnotised by speed. "A bear," she said longingly, "by the side of the road." On another occasion a grimmer experience - a dead deer and a wrecked US car. But it was the distance between these two corpses that was salutary - perhaps a full quarter of a mile. It's what speed can do.
At Wayland we were transported from industrial USA and entered the village/town that provided something like the set for Hitchcock's movie The Trouble With Harry. Was the steepled church painted white and artfully constructed out of wood? I don't care if it wasn't; my recall however faulty says this was the case. The bride's father was a beer distributor and the family's bath was full of cans of beer (hundreds?) and chunks of ice; no need to ask, just serve-yourself. The attitude of the guests towards me, a foreigner, was more peaceful, less antagonistic than it was back in Pittsburgh. (Don't get me wrong, I fed on that antagonism, I felt it legitimised me.) From that day on I started using the adjective "upstate" because of its evocations.
Our destination that day didn't include Lucifer Falls but "that bath" was compensation.
Ah yes, Stueben County. I've been through there many times, there is now a really amazing glass museum in Corning. Did you actually go to Bath, NY? A bit south of Wayland, I think. I'm glad you had that experience of rural New York State. I once saw a bear run across the highway in that neck of the woods. I also got ticketed for speeding in that county. If you had gone a couple of counties over you would have found yourself near or even on the Seneca Reservation. Thanks for sharing those memories.
DeleteMy daughter went to Cornell and my son to Ithaca College. I have seen every single one of these places in the real, and they are stunning. Your photos do them justice. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
ReplyDeleteTompkins County is a beautiful place!
Delete