Sunday, July 17, 2011

Cayuga Lake Area, New York

Our improvised campground worked out very well yesterday. It was fun watching the fisherman & kayakers. This is a very popular park. I always enjoy seeing the families doing things together. Too often life just gets way to busy it seems to take out time for family fun.

Todays destination is the Cayuga Lake State Park. We just had to find someplace to dump the tanks after being at the beach house for a week. The back country roads took us through Ithaca, NY; the home of Cornell University. Carol saw a sign about a Sunday Farmers Market so in we went. What a nice find. There were lots of very different food vendors not your run-of-the-mill stuff(luckily, I suppose, we had just finished breakfast), organic farmers, artisan bread makers, etc. We poked around for the better part of an hour then found a nearby park where we could share a sticky bun three ways. Gopher gets all the bread on the bottom; we get the gooey stuff on top. She never complains about her share.
The drive from Ithaca to the Cayuga Lake SP is along a "scenic byway". Didn't strike us as very scenic; we could rarely even catch a glimpse of the water. This is a major wine producing area. We must have passed a dozen wineries most of which offered tastings. We don't drink wine, but if someone did, they could get drunk driving on the Scenic Byway.
Todays drive was almost entirely through agricultural lands. New York has some large dairy farms in addition to the usual corn, soy beans, etc. A pretty drive.



Tomorrow we head to the Niagara Falls area. Slowly working our way to the Upper Peninsula of MI.

A little bit about Cayuga Lake. Formed by glaciers, the most recent being about 10,000 years ago. It's over 38 miles long and 435' at its deepest. Originally it was the home of the Cayuga Indians, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). The Iroquois Nation sided with the British during the American Revolution. After the war, General John Sullivan was charged with "subduing" the Iroquois Nation to make it safe for European American settlers to move in and begin harvesting the timber and farming the land.

1 comment:

Donna K said...

Sounds like a great farmers market. Interesting info on Cayuga Lake too. Now all we need is a picture of Gopher eating a sticky bun!!!