How I never made it to Ithaca Falls, part of Fall Creek Gorge, during 50-some years of visiting Ithaca I don’t know but two days ago, our friends suggested it in lieu of hiking up Cascadilla falls gorge on a muggy July day. Great option! We parked just south of Cornell’s campus and took an east short walk to the huge falls. I needed one more gorge visit before we left and this was perfect.
I’ve always had trouble remembering which falls belongs to which of the two gorges that run through campus. Ithaca falls is part of Fall creek Gorge, just below the Stewart Avenue bridge which is below the suspension bridge and then Beebe lake to Forest Home. (Next trip: check out the rimtrail!) The second gorge, Cascadilla, connects downtown to collegetown.
From AI:
In essence:
Fall Creek Gorge is larger, with a more expansive feel and multiple waterfalls, including the impressive Ithaca Falls.
Cascadilla Gorge is a more intimate experience, with a well-defined trail that allows for a closer look at the creek and its waterfalls as it winds through the gorge.
We did a quick spin around the IthacaFarmers market’s semi- open air pavilion, picking up some sugar snaps and trying to resist the heirloom tomatoes (since we’re driving home right now). Yes, the rough gravel parking lot has been replaced by pavement, losing some hippie scruffiness and gaining some boho practicality.
For our final (and third) visit this trip to Cream at the Top, our favorite ice cream stand, miraculously carved into a cornfield in Lansing, we shifted from our favorite hard ice cream flavors (white lightening, queen of hearts, grasshopper pie, Michigan pothole, Rush hour) to soft serve chocolate dipped in chocolate. Big decision and good call. It was so creamy I could swear it was frozen custard. We’ll be back.
What a tricky name to spell and province but Skaneateles is as pretty as I remember from our last visit here, some 25 years ago. I forgot it’s only a 50 minute drive from “the cottage” (our friends’ place in Lansing/king Ferry).
We had fried fish but also a shrimp po boy and lobster roll at Doug’s fish fry, a local haunt with a much-appreciated picnic area perfect for our dog (and us) with picnic tables and umbrellas for shade in a enclosed picnic area with a green lawn bordered by pretty flowers.
The village feels much more well-heeled and touristy than Ithaca, with well preserved old buildings all my Main street and upscale gift shops and a pretty old inn overlooking Skaneateles Lake. The lakefront park is charming, as I remembered, with a dock where an old fashioned cruise boat takes visitors out onto the narrow finger lake. There happened to be a vintage boat show, with shiny wood boats as old as the early 1900s.
We did a loop drive, coming up the west side of owasca lake and returning by driving along the east side, both pretty routes through emerald green farm fields, narrow rollercoaster roads up and down the hills, past worn farmhouses, dairy farms, and small old towns.
(Oops. Forgot to post this a few days ago.) Lovely visit to our friends little slice of heaven in Duchess County. We mostly stayed put (why leave Heaven?) but did walk the dogs (our Millie; hosts’ Ollie and Leto) along the Hudson at mills State park, past the columned white concrete mills mansion atop a sloping green lawn with beautiful old trees and majestic river views. (Sampled red raspberries along the way.)
In the afternoon we tried out our friends electric bikes on hilly and curving back roads, past old white farmhouses, landing at Slow fox farms beer tent (technically in Rhinebeck).
Returned just in time for a brief downpour and then biked past omega institute, a retreat, and returned on dirt shady dirt roads to heaven!
Our near-annual trip to Ithaca (thank you Myra and Mike) has produced a few discoveries to share:
The parking is free at state parks here for people age 62 and over. Alas I did not discover this until age 66 (now) and have dutifully shelled out $10 at parks including our favorite, Treman which has a gorgeous trail hugging a gorge.
The money shot at Upper Treman
A ranger also told us that when we use the pay machine (in lieu of a ranger) we can scan our license with our birthdate to get free parking.
Tuesdays at Taughanock is a summer music series on the patio of the charming inn at Taughanock falls, which I first went to for dinner with my parents as a kid. (When it was as the Taughanock farms inn.) It sits high above Cayuga waters (not as high as Cornell to the east). $20 gets you a large burger, chips and a beer or glass of wine, plus the music, in this case a low-key performance by singer Annie Burns, of Burns sisters fame (a popular local group we last saw maybe 20 years ago.)
It’s still a long haul to get here in one day from Chicago, some 600 miles, about 10 hours factoring in a few irritating construction tie-ups on I-80. We had smooth sailing through most of Indiana and Ohio but then a 25 minute delay as the traffic piled up with a lane closure due to construction.
Pennsylvania’s wooded hills and wide river valleys are beautiful but driving up and down the Appalachian mountains, on the highway, sharing the road with big trucks, is a little hairy. Fortunately it wasn’t raining as as in the past and we only drove about a half hour in the dark.
The west end ale house kitchen in downtown Bloomsburg closes at 10 and we pulled in at 9:35. They couldn’t have been nicer, as was the case last year, and the cheeseburger was good. We met four nice young townies sitting outside next to us, thx to Millie dog talk, and they told us a bit about Bloomsburg University, which has 18,000 students and a party school rep, that has gone down a bit in recent years. (They seemed sad about that.) They were alumni in their later 20s. One was a stone mason, another a teacher with job corps. we drove around the campus which is high on a hill at the end of Main Street and has some pretty old buildings. (Fun fact: the gruff coach for the bad boy 1990s Detroit pistons is an alum. We passed Chuck Daley way on campus… the tip-off!)
Fog and Flame
We stayed at the Quality Inn which was hard to find – at the edge of a nondescript mall. A big bowl of dog biscuits awaited at the front desk and the place already seemed a step up from the Red Roof that we stayed at last year. The place was full of young baseball players (Williamsport, the little league World Series location is nearby). But our room was quiet. Coffee at fog and flame, the local coffeehouse was ok. Cute decor. Pastries lacking.
99 degrees is highly unusual for Vermont but this is our lot yesterday and today. We drive south on scenes two-lane route 116 to the small town of Bristol where we had lunch at minifactory, a cool contemporary space: excellent food, very slow service. It took 45 minutes to get our food. I had a very basic entree- delicious flaky griddle buttermilk biscuit with homemade cream cheese and homemade rhubarb cherry jam. The restaurant’s odd name comes from its honey-based Jam-making minifactory. Noah and dirck had more complicated sandwiches but still… the place wasn’t that packed.
Microfactory
There were a few shops to wander in (vermont honeylights) and a pretty village green – less pristine than real and functional. We drove through nearby Middlebury college. In Bristol we also drove around the Tillerman, a 1797 farmhouse that is now an inn, restaurant and concert performance space. Looks great. It was closed on a Monday.
Honey Road
Our search for a place to swim in the river proved frustrating. I wasn’t willing to risk the huge slippery boulders leading to the enticing falls and flats. We watched teenage kids do crazy high drives from big rocks (and later learned a kid was killed in this area a day earlier.) We also got a $15 ticket for parking along the rural road, behind many other parked cars that also got tickets. Finally we ended up where we should Have begun- the perfect river entry spot in Waitsfield– shallow entry, sand not rocks or slippery boulders!
Dinner was inventive Mediterranean food at James Beard-nominated Honey Road. Very good. Reasonably priced.
On our last day we braved Shelburne Farms, a historic farm south of Burlington with surprisingly grand buildings that barely resembled barns – lots of heavy brick, wood, and copper. After a half hour of heat, we got back on the bus for the drive across fields with hay being harvested to the parking area. Next time I’d like to get to the Shelburne museum and house with an inn and gardens. The photos I took are crazy, like something out of a Gothic movie.
Although we were warned on Monday that our flight home on Tuesday was imperiled by possible thunderstorms in Chicago and advised to rebook, we found no great option so took our chances. The plane left on time but was stuck on the runway for maybe 20 minutes due to a thunderstorm…in Burlington. Then we were off, and arrived in Chicago on time. Noah also made it back to DC (a day late, after his flight was cancelled for no obvious reason.)
I never feel like I’m in Vermont unless I visit a tiny small town so I took a brief break from helping my cousin build a yurt on his land outside Waterbury to visit two tiny and lovely small towns.
Warren general store
Warren has a handful of pristine white 19th century classic Vermont buildings – church with a steeple, general store with worn floors and pricey goods, from vermonty things (maple syrup ) to imported French ceramic chickens, and the lovely Pitcher Inn (which locals report has a very good restaurant). The general store also has baked goods, fried chicken, sandwiches (soup of day: vichyssoise.) Its also home to Warren Falls, one of Vermont’s favorite swimming holes. A small waterfall with water cascading down boulders runs behind the inn and general store.
The Pitcher Inn, Warren
A little further north on route 100 is Waitsfield, which has a good artisans gallery, a covered bridge and a popular river swimming and tubing spot. A flatbread place serves good pizza. This is the Mad River valley near sugar bush ski area. Very lush green fields, winding roads, gentle mountains.
Waitsfield river swimming
We came here to help my cousin build a yurt on his land in Duxbury, in the woods high above a refreshing pond. It’s hard and unfamiliar work, lugging wood planks, sawing, drilling, hammering, but fun to be working along side other family and friends. I’ve learned how to use an electric drill to insert screws and how to plane wood boards (smoothing down the sharp edges.) and how to team up to pull a tarp over the rising yurt during a sudden downpour.
I emerge from the woods with a damp saw-dust-flecked t-shirt. There’s been 10-20 of us, from vermont, Montreal, Connecticut, DC, Chicago; kids playing in the woods and pond;, dogs demanding to be thrown sticks; communal meals where we rest, eat surprisingly well, gaze out at the green field, pond, woods, sometimes threatening clouds, and get to know each other.
Autumn First turned out to be the perfect spot to meet my sister and her husband for an early lunch before they drove north to Montreal (only 2 hours away.) I gather it may be cheaper to fly and drive from Burlington than to fly to Montreal; I also gather crossing the border in this age of hostility toward Im/migrants isn’t a hassle..at least for people not of color.
Autumn First
A bakery, cafe, and coffee shop with a casual, warm, independent, alternative and earthy vibe Autumn First offered vegetable-forward breakfast and lunch ( avocado toast, mushroom toast with ricotta and a fried egg..a little too sweet flavored), grain bowls either protein options, blts and turkey sandwiches. And blueberry muffins,, koughin-ammans, baguettes. Excellent maple lemonade too. And located downtown but not on the pedestrian corridor.
In downtown Burlington, which is beset by road construction, we found some excellent vermont maker shops around the ChurchStreet Market place: common deer for maple syrup to posters and jewelry; froghollow for pottery, watercolors, glasswork by Vermont artists, Belleville bakery for excellent croissants, and soft cookies (peanut butter, ginger without the snap).
Burlington facade
We met Burlington friends at Henry’s diner, celebrating its 100th bday and I can see why. Cool old train car atmospheric, classic breakfast fare, good quick service.
We picked up fresh out of the wood-fired oven, Montreal style bagels at Myer‘s. Good chewy consistency but surprisingly flavorless. Maybe a little salt in the batter would help?
I don’t think I’ve ever flown into vermont before today. We always arrived after long car rides from Michigan (when I was a kid. My mother loved this state). Two years ago we drove to Burlington from Ithaca (after driving from Chicago to Ithaca).
Morning in Vermont
The Vermont airport was pleasantly small and we had our quickest rental car procurement ever. Five people behind the Avis counter. no line.
Zero gravity dining
We drove our goofy white Kia soul (a box on wheels) to zero Gravity, a brewpub downtown to meet my cousin and his friend for a late lunch. Excellent fried chicken sandwich, “dirty fries“ (w/ bits of pork), Caesar salad and a grapefruit cider (from vermont). With rain in the forecast, I needed a coat and found one for $19.99 at sierra outfitters, a discount store next to tjmaxx with remarkably cheap outdoor wear.
Dirck and Ben and Jerry
Dinner tonight was at Ben & Jerry’s – yes, ice cream for dinner! When in vermont…the ice cream shop is downtown on the pedestrian corridor (aka Churchstreet). I’ve only eaten this ice cream from small store-bought tubs. It was fun to go into a shop with big tubs of 15 or so flavors (chocolate therapy is one fav.) and exceedingly friendly young scoopers offering samples.
We walked along the Burlington greenway, a paved two lane trail through woods hugging shimmering lake Champlain, with the Adirondacks in the distance. Bikes zipped past us on what I assume was a former rail line. The trail goes right past my cousins condo, which has a sweeping view of green lawn and grass and sun breaking through the clouds onto the lake. Tonight we had drinks with old friends from our Des Moines Register days (30 years ago), sitting on the lovely front porch of their stately 1917 house on Union street.
Two years ago, not long after we moved to Chicago, my brother and I visited Intuit in a blinding rainstorm that made it hard to see where we were. The art museum was charmingly scruffy, in a 19th-century brick building with worn wooden floors and battered walls that seemed well-suited for the museum’s collection of quirky and eclectic artwork by “self-taught” (and intuitive) artists. Soon after our visit the museum closed for renovation and expansion. It just reopened and I’m pleased to report that it’s even better – retaining its essential scruffiness but bigger and brighter, with white panels covering much of the still-worn walls and the original worn wood floor gently restored (or so it seemed.)
All the better to showcase its often eccentric artwork found in the permanent collection pieces and a special exhibit “Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago” featuring a diverse selection of artwork by 22 immigrant and migrant self-taught artists who came to Chicago from all over the world (Poland, Ukraine, Honduras, Mexico…). It’s fantastic and timely, given the unwarranted and obnoxious demonization of im/migrants by our current unbearable president. Among my favorites — elegant art deco-ish decorative objects made from unlikely prosaic material — a dental equipment company’s discarded metal. The artist, Stanley Szwarc, who immigrated to the US from Poland in 1977, worked at the company.
The museum’s permanent collection also includes the work of self-taught Chicago artist Henry Darger, (1892-1973) who lived near us in Lincoln Park in a one-room third-floor apartment and produced often cartoon-like work. Orphaned as a young boy, he landed in the awful-named Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children in Lincoln, Illinois. In Chicago, he worked by day as a hospital janitor, by night for forty years as an artist and writer, producing a massive illustrated novel set in an imaginary world with lots of clouds, storms, fire and seven heroines – the Vivian Girls – who led armies to defeat child-enslaving foes. He often traced figures from newspapers, magazines and kids coloring books, painting and collaging. Fortunately his landlords discovered and preserved his work, and his living room/studio contents (Pepto Bismol bottles, stacks of magazines, many shoes). The museum offers a reimaging of Darger’s studio with some of his original furniture and art materials.
Henry Darger’s work and reimagined digs
We met the museum’s enthusiastic president/ceo who showed us a bright new classroom space in the rear of the building where outreach programs are provided to teachers and students. The museum’s gift shop has also been spiffed up, but has the same interesting offerings. I’m a longtime fan of this art by ordinary (sometimes psychologically challenged) people, not academy/trained artists, variously (and awkwardly) known as outsider, naive, primitive, folk, or self-taught. Also don’t miss a visit to the bathrooms, yes, bathrooms – donated by Kohler (the bathroom fixture company) with fantastic arty light fixtures.
Looking out the windows of Intuit in Chicago, we could not miss a massive metal building across Milwaukee Avenue called Gangnam Market, which turned out to also be well worth a visit – part Korean food hall/arcade — Korean drinks here, Korean tacos there – and part upscale market. I also enjoyed browsing through the Asian candy, snacks and trinkets – exotic flavored Hi-Chews, KitKats (matcha tea, like we saw in Japan), chips (flavors: oyster, crawfish, cumin lamb skewer) Hello Kitty merch – and takeout Asian fare (seaweed, sushi, oniguri etc.) We’ll be back to try the Korean tacos, at a minimum.
Dinner was at Opart Thai House on Chicago Avenue — which lived up to its reputation. It’s a nothing-fancy interior with well-executed classics (pad thai, green curry with very fresh shrimp) and originals (to us) like a “peanut lovers” dish with chicken and vegetables coated in a thick peanutbutter-ish sauce. (It’s also BYOB, we learned.)
One of my earliest introductions to “outsider” was during the late 1980s in the amazing outsider art enclave of Lucas, Kansas – home to “The Garden of Eden” — a bizarre concrete log cabin with a yard full of giant sculptures with biblical and populist themes (Adam and Eve and the serpent; the farmer being crucified by the banker, lawyer, etc.). From this came a museum of outsider art that became affiliated with the Smithsonian and a public restroom/public art project resembling a giant toilet with intricate mosaics. All in a tiny windswept town in the middle of nowhere. In another Kansas small town, near Kansas City, I met another remarkable self-taught artists known as Grandma Layton, who started drawing in her older age when wishes had mental health issues and produced searing portraits of herself and husband. She gave me a signed poster of one of her paintings that I treasure, especially since her work was not sold, at least back in the 1980s. Baltimore also has a terrific outsider art museum that I visited, sneaking away from a work meeting to make sure I didn’t miss it!
TakeBetsywithyou 