Upper Treman gorge trail ❤️
(Late post…)
Fortunately I had my friend Tom to lend a hand, literally, when the gorge trail along the rushing waters between Upper and Lower Treman State Park got a little scary. After tripping on a tree root during a hike in the woods a year ago in Norway and breaking my arm, it is taking awhile to regain my confidence as a hiker.
Ithaca Bakery downtown
After our two-mile hike, we plunged into the ice cold water of the swimming hole at the base of a waterfall with white water crashing down the mossy rocks. So many memories of this place from childhood summers and college summers and summers with our kids. We almost didn’t get to swim because of inhospitable water conditions that closed the swimming area yesterday.
Blue green algae is the scare de jour on Cayuga Lake but no one has been able to adequately explain what the health risks are. And I have thoroughly enjoyed my late afternoons swimming in the lake which is warmer than the gorge pools but still very refreshing. Tonight myra and I went to a wine tasting at a new winery, Bright Leaf, just up the road. We listened to live music, sipped wine, nibbled on crostini and couscous,and admired the sunset over the lake, an orange fireball slowing dropping into the pale blue water.
I also stopped for late lunch at the Ithaca Bakery downtown – the T-burg twist rules! (Tuna with avocado on brown bread,)
Maybe it’s because I am old enough to aspire to be a birder or maybe it’s that I never realized what a cool place an ornithology lab can be, but I was pleasantly surprised by my visit yesterday to The Cornell Ornithology lab at Sapsucker Woods. I arrived as a free lab tour was starting and it was great, about 18 visitors from all over (including a guy from Wales who mentioned living for a few years in Ottumwa, Iowa and loving it) and a very engaging guide who led us into the areas normally off bounds for visitors. We saw some very interesting stuffed birds, bird feet and bird wings in the specimens lab (or some such) and learned all kinds of interesting tidbits about the life and study of birds. (See Notes below) I also walked on one of the sawdust paths in the woods around the attractive modern lab building with a borrowed pair of binoculars (which an 8 year old girl tried to show me how to use) to try to find some noteworthy birds. Next trip I’d like to go on one of their early morning free guided bird walks on Saturday or Sunday.
On the way back to the lake, I stopped at the Ithaca Bakery outpost in the odd Triphammer mall for bread for dinner. Nice to have. And I drove through the hidden hamlet of Ludlowville to see if anything was going on and was pleased to see that nothing was.
I am so thrilled to be back in my favorite place in the world, certainly my sentimental favorite. Ithaca is so full of memories that go back to my childhood when my parents– who met in Ithaca in college and loved this place — took my siblings and me here as kids to Cornell alumni university for a week each summer during the 1970s.
We were on our way to hear 19 – yes 19 – Democrats vying to be the presidential nominee in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential contest. We were braced to be hungry — the Democratic party event in Cedar Rapids promised to be long, with little to no food. So what better time to visit the new cleverly-named Caucus Bistro in the small town of Ladora, Iowa — about midway between our house in Des Moines and the hotel ballroom in Cedar Rapids where Democrats including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand (see photo op below), Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klohbuchar and “Mayor Pete” (so-named because I can’t remember how to spell his last name, although I think I now know how to pronounce it).
Word has it over 900 people showed up last Saturday night (June 1) for the Des Moines Center’s first show to feature the artwork of LGBT&Q artists…The crowd included many members of the “queer” community, some drag queens, no shortage of presumably straight folks and me. It was a great celebration – with food, drink, music – and, of course, work by 15 artists that is well worth a visit to see! Oh and it also won a major prize from Sotheby’s: 
We somehow managed to drive from Des Moines to Chicago last night without directly encountering any of the storms that were popping up all around us. Outside Iowa City on I-80, we saw scary looking white clouds (which may or may not have produced the tornado we learned touched down about 25 minutes before we passed through) and in Illinois, lightning lit up the dark night just south of us and north of us off and on. Needless to say, we were very happy when we got to Chicago around midnight.
Today, the weather was much more pleasant than anticipated in Chicago, sunny and warm instead of rainy. We spent two hours at the scoula on the second floor of eataly, taking a very fun cheese and wine tasting class that emma and rocket got me for my birthday. Great gift idea and we sampled 6 cheeses, and 3 “natural” wines and learned everything we ever wanted to know about to cheese from the cheesemonger.
