Upstate New York In The Fall

Neither Ron nor I have been to visit his oldest brother Dale and wife Marie in Ithaca.  Since they're planning to move closer to one of their sons in VT next year, this was our last year to have a reason to visit Ithaca.  Dale professed at Cornell University and retired four years ago; Marie nursed at the local hospital and retired a couple years before that.  

We enplaned in Phoenix Wednesday morning to fly to Philadelphia (referred to as "Philly" by those in the know), where we connected to a flight to Ithaca.  

Did I ever say I wasn't a geek?  I had a window seat!  I had to take (blurry) pictures of my first Back East Fall Colors!

Ithaca has a population of about 30,000 and this airport reminded me of the one we flew into in Grand Island, NE, with a similar population.

Dale and Marie picked us up and the driving we did to get to their home gave us a good start on those spectacular fall colors.

Our hosts had a full slate of touristing planned for us.  They chose drives that included endless scenes of color,

and destinations that were replete with local history.  Of which there is a lot.  And it's important history.  

Thursday we drove to Auburn.  Our first stop was the Harriet Tubman property.  Holy Smokes!  History in the East is very different than history in the West.  LOTS older, and of different significance to the country.  The schoolbook Harriet Tubman I knew about took on a whole different reality as we read about her in the museum and saw her actual home.

Marie said there are many of these signs along roadways.  There were put there when the means of transportation were such that you could read and enjoy them as you traveled.  That would be a few MPH ago! 

This was Harriet's primary residence, and was closed to tourists.

Harriet owned and operated this house as a Home For The Aged, and lived here the last two years of her life. 

The museum was full of interesting facts and true stories of this woman whom Wikipedia calls "a major conductor of the Underground Railroad".  She was an amazing example of the difference one person CAN make.

 

Next in Auburn was the residence of William H. Seward.

Known by me only as the agent of "Seward's Folly", not only was Alaska not a folly, he was a prominent politician of his times.  

The Seward family planned for perpetuity.  This house was donated fully intact.  The clothing in the closets had notes in the pockets saying who wore it and where it had been worn. 

Our final stop in Auburn was at the cemetery.

We visited the grave sites of Harriet Tubman

as well as William Seward and his wife.

The drive home included a stop at the fantastic MacKenzie-Childs furniture factory.  Described as eclectic (really expensive, too), here's a sample.  It was a fun hour looking at these creations.

Friday, brother Ed, his wife Paula and their son Joshua made the drive up from the Washington D.C. area to join us for the weekend.  As their arrival was in the afternoon, we spent the morning in the Ithaca area sampling the many waterfalls.  

Taughannock Falls:

Buttermilk Falls:

In Tremain State Park, we followed this wonderful trail built by the CCC:

The trail took us to Upper Falls:

and Lower Falls.

In town, Ithaca Falls:

 

Once Ed and family arrived, Dale took us on a driving tour of Cornell University campus.  It's not a single entity.  There is a main campus, but various satellite campuses are located throughout the Ithaca area.   And what would a campus be without its own falls?  

College life is known to have it's stresses, and you can imagine that Cornell University would not be on the list of the country's "party schools".  It's an Ivy League school, with a high degree of history, prestige, and expectation of performance.  I took this photo of Fall Creek from a suspension bridge that crosses Fall Creek Gorge on campus.  There have been enough student suicides from this bridge to warrant the wire you see, which reaches about 15' high.  Yikes.

Ron's birthday was this day, and we celebrated with cake and ice cream.

  

Saturday we drove to Geneva and met Dale and Marie's daughter Becky and her husband Matt for a very nice lunch and chat at the restaurant of the Belhurst Castle.

 Cornell University is well known for its Ornithology Department, and we had time for a brief stop at the Ornithology Lab on our way home.

Sunday Ed & Family departed for points south, and with Marie at the wheel, we headed north to Canada and Niagara Falls.  Driving through a bit of snow didn't bother us a bit!

We stopped in Seneca Falls, which is considered the birthplace of the Women's Suffrage movement in the U.S.  This statue and plaque commemorate the meeting of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who were instrumental in the movement.  There's that history again.

Niagara Falls is best viewed from the Canadian side, so we crossed the border into Canada.  

With an overnight stay planned, we checked into our hotel then walked to the viewing area for the Falls.

There are actually three Falls.  On the American side, American Falls and smaller Bridal Veil Falls to the right.

On the Canadian side, Horseshoe Falls.

The Falls are fed by the Niagara River, which in turn is fed by Lakes Erie and Ontario.  20% of the world's fresh water goes over these falls.  Stunning, and worth seeing.

  The area has been popular for a couple hundred years, and because there is no ready way to interact with the Falls, the area is intensely commercialized.  The Falls are surrounded by high-rise hotels and casinos, and no end of tourist activities at $20 a pop.  Ron and I chose to go "Behind the Falls" for a closer view.

A visit to the local IMAX rounded out this day.  The movie included a general history of the area, and in the same building was a small museum containing many of the devices daredevils have used to go over the falls through the years.  Yes, many with fatal results. 

There is an associated Niagara Parks system that offers plenty of activities, including trails, gardens, culinary opportunities, and golf.  On Monday we went to the Butterfly Conservatory.  Dale and Marie highly recommended it, and it did not disappoint.  In fact, it was not only the best of the three butterfly gardens I've visited, but I may never go to another one because it can't possibly be as good!  

At 11,000 square feet, the Conservatory is a controlled tropical environment.  The flora is beautifully and lushly maintained.

In the winter season, the butterfly population is kept at about 2,000.  That's enough butterflies fluttering around to keep your attention!  Butterflies are both raised at the conservatory and imported.

Time to head back to Ithaca.   We made another stop in Seneca Falls intending to visit the Women's Suffrage museum; despite our double-checked information it was closed.  We made do very satisfactorily with the National Women's Hall of Fame, which contained a few artifacts,  photographs and information about women past and present who have been nominated for their contributions to the country.

Our last stop was at Aurora Inn in Aurora for a special treat of dessert and coffee.  The Inn is one of several local historical residences restored by a woman who attended the local college, made her fortune, and came back to show her thanks in this way.   

With our flight home the next day, our time in Ithaca was finished.  Many thanks to our hosts Dale and Marie for their hospitality and thoroughly excellent choices of attractions to share with us.

OUTSTANDING OCTOBER

Gypsy and I started the month with what turned out to be an attempt to hike the 12-mile Sycamore Rim Trail.

The trail is a loop, and I've been enjoying it for years.  The scenery is great, and the distance is a decent enough challenge.

I'd chosen an entry point that put KA Hill, the only climb, early.  I huffed up and took a snack break at the top.  Still fooling around with the selfie stick.  They're really made for smart phone cameras where you can see the picture you're taking.  With my point & shoot camera, there's a lot of guesswork!  

We started down KA Hill, and as we went down in elevation, the trail became less and less defined.  Perhaps last winter's snows had caused all the downed trees.  Heavy rains obliterated the trail itself.  I knew pretty closely where I was, but after a short distance of not picking up the trail again, I decided to err of the side of safety.  I had a plan, so I turned around and huffed back up KA Hill, then picked up a forest road that I knew went around the Hill.  I followed the road, looking for the trail.  Yeah, not so much.  Besides a generalized uncertainty, there was active logging in the area.

 What with not locating the trail in a reasonable amount of time and the logging truck traffic, I decided to turn back for good.  Our hike was about half the distance I planned, but I was comfortable with my decision.  It's always a pleasure to be out hiking, even if things don't go exactly as planned.  Another time, knowing what I know now, I might plan an alternate route to account for both the logging and the lack of trail on KA Hill.

The next day, Ron told me he and the dogs had heard a pitiful meowing sound on their walk that morning, and had finally spotted a grey cat up in a pine tree-about 30' up in the tree.  He called it, but it made no effort to come down.  He decided to wait and see if the cat was still there on the evening walk.  It was.  He had mentioned the cat was wearing a tag, and we could clearly see the pink color of the tag.  Ron went back out with his camera to try to get some pix of the tag and hopefully be able to contact the owner.  He did and he did. Here's Cuddles, looking unhappy.

  By the time the owners could get out here from town, it was dark.  They and Ron walked out to the tree again, during which time they told him Cuddles had been missing for NINE DAYS!  Oh, my.  Cuddles would not come down for them either, so they went home to contact an arborist friend who could climb the tree and rescue the cat the next day.

Here's Mick on his way up.

Ready to capture Cuddles in a special bag.

Lowering Cuddles to the ground.

Cuddles, weak, hungry and thirsty, but safe with her family.

A week or so later, this article appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun, accompanied by the above picture of Cuddles in the tree:

October 11, 2015 3:15 am

Flagstaff's Melita Shoup and her fiance Jim Crane's cat Cuddles had been missing for a week when they went out to dinner on Friday, Oct. 2. Shoup's phone rang at the end of the meal. In her own words, this is what followed:
A man called to say that he had located our cat about a quarter of a mile from his home in Kachina. Ron Bauman had been walking his dogs and had heard a strange sound. As he got closer it was obviously a cat in distress. He located the cat about 30 feet up a Ponderosa pine tree. He returned with his camera and took a high resolution picture with a zoom lens. He was able to capture the cat's tag in the picture. He returned home and loaded the picture to his computer and enlarged the image until he could read the tag. He immediately called my number. We paid the check and drove back to Kachina.
We reached Ron's home, about a block from our own, just as the sun was setting. We all rushed over to the tree but no amount of coaxing could bring the cat down. We returned home and I called my former neighbor Mick Henry of Mick's Tree Service. He agreed to come the next morning (Saturday) and bring the cat down.
We are so grateful to the two men who were instrumental in rescuing our cat. The cat is doing very well now and seems to be recovering without serious injury.   

If this all seems familiar....it's because in July 2014 we rescued this (different) cat from a tree in the forest:

 

  We kept her for a couple weeks before she disappeared, presumably for home.

Sunday, Theater Movie Season opened with a bang: 

 

 It was a Hollywood version of the disastrous 1996 climbing season, in which a storm caught climbers too high and too late on the mountain and death ensued.  We watched it in 3D, and there were a couple of times my fear of edges almost had me out of the theater!  It was well done and chilling in every sense of the word.  Though I had read Jon Krakauer's first-hand account "Into Thin Air"  years ago, I happened on a copy of it on tape at the library, read by Krakauer.  His account was equally chilling and disastrous.  I found it whetted my appetite, though, and when I happened upon an on-line article titled "The 7 Most Riveting Reads About Mount Everest", well, let me just say that there are six books sitting on my shelf and I'm about to dive in for the long haul!  

 

Thursday, hiking companion Sue and I re-hiked a portion of the Arizona Trail on the Peaks, going for fall color.   It was a little early, but we found enough for some good pix.  We'd had some rain, which was early snow on the Peaks.

Friday, Theater Movie Season continued with:

 

NASA niece Melissa had recommended this movie (and the book it was based on) as having some 

decent space science.  We loved it! Also in 3D.  Unlike Everest, which was a disaster movie with a sad ending, The Martian is a disaster movie with a good ending.  Lots of humor from Matt Damon as astronaut Mark Watney left for dead when a Mars mission had to be abandoned.  Must-see.

As if all that wasn't enough, our Theatrikos tickets were for Sunday, so we went to Live Theater for: 

It was an interesting story, if a little difficult to figure out who the "good people" might be.

Tuesday we drove to Phoenix, spent the night in a motel, and caught an early plane the next morning  for Ithaca, NY via Philadelphia to visit Ron's oldest brother Dale and wife Marie.  There's a separate post pending for that.

 

A week later, back home from a most enjoyable New York trip.  Whew!  I've plenty of projects that I managed to put off during the busy summer, and am now planning to stay home for the rest of the year and do them!

"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on
the feelings, as now in October." 

                                               -  Nathaniel Hawthorne