Syracuse And The Finger Lakes

Waking early in Syracuse I was dragged by Cheyenne to the car and clearly we had to go downtown to let my imperious Labradir explore. And let's face it, I know nothing of Syracuse so it's time to see what we can find. A Jewish temple converted into a hotel. No shit. Syracuse Hotels | The Skyler Hotel in Syracuse, New York.

Then there was this monument on a hill, something to do with the university I think. Cheyenne had other ideas and we promptly got lost in the loading docks at the back of the hospital nearby. New Yorkers prefer not yo majesty eye contact so I make it my mission to give each and everyone a cheery Key West "Good Morning!" That makes their day I think. It sure makes mine to watch them twitch in horror at being addressed.

They've got this right, whatever it is:

Syracuse is boosting itself. Downtown? Not sure where that is but Cheyenne was happy.

I am never sure how I feel about these huge brick monoliths that dot the northeast. It seems like they are symbolic of the solidity that was the industrial base of this country a hundred and fifty years ago. Today the industry has been scaled back almost out of sight. People look at me as though I'm crazy when I suggest it would be better to build stuff here rather than in India, Thailand or China. I look at these monuments to 19th century American enterprise and wonder why offshoring work makes sense to anyone.

Sun

We got going around eleven am to taste wines of the Finger Lakes region, an hour west of Syracuse. It was raining of course, but I was a passenger in the back seat so I was feeling fine.

The sun came out as it does in these parts eventually I'm told, and we found our way through fabulous fields of shiny green corn, lovely copses of trees in full leaf and rolling countryside. This isn't hill country but it's beautiful.

Cheyenne liked the back area of the Subaru station wagon.

She developed a taste for looking out the back. On the rear seat of our Ford she lies down and never bothers to even try to look out. Good dog.

The others went inside, Cheyenne and I went looking for things to smell.

At some point one has to get human again and the wine tasting was the right place for that. It was at this stage that I discovered they make some pretty good wine in this part of New York.

We'd brought a picnic lunch and we had it in this astounding barn. It was now that Steve mentioned he doesn't much care for wine. Dude! He went above and beyond on this trip...driving us around to taste wine.

Nice place this one, Miles, but it was packed knee deep with tasters attracted apparently by a mention in National Geographic.

Nice lake view the magazine said.

Tastes good, Cheyenne said.

The wine? Nah, too crowded. Steve has lived in Stracuse 35 years teaching law at the University. He's retired and wants to live full time in Key West. Stacey his wife doesn't. So they spend summers in Syracuse and winters in the Southernmost City. Which is okay I suppose but I'd miss swimming in the Keys in the hot months.

Some of these places are really laid back, which makes tasting fun. Even for Cheyenne:

I got to visit a part of this astonishing state I'd never hoped I'd get to see. I cannot imagine how boring wine tasting must be to someone who only enjoys mixed drinks! Stacey knows her local history and I enjoyed hearing about the past that infuses this area.

It was good to get home and watch the gradual descent into night, that slow dusk that I miss back home in Key West. I do miss 80 degree water though! And constant sunshine!

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Riding A Jet Ski On The Freeway, And Other Adirondack Stories

We awoke in Plattsburgh New York to sunny skies and a cool breeze off Lake Champlain, and it was as though we had left the rain and clouds of New England behind us, on the eastern shore of the lake. Jack Riepe has been nagging me since I first met him years ago to visit the Adirondack Mountains his spiritual home. Today, in the words of the late Mel Fisher, was the day.

I am sure I'm late to the party but the Adirondacks are lovely so how I've never previously seen them I don't know. Cheyenne was delighted, but seemed to feel a dry riverbed might be more picturesque.

I'm not sure the winding road to a Lake Placid rates as "wilderness" but we found not much traffic, gorgeous roads and incredible views.

The trails were lovely, empty, and gave us perhaps a touch of the much sought after wilderness.

After decades spent in California one starts to think that any hump lower than 7,000 feet doesn't count as a mountain. As a result the entire east coast is written off by the California mind used to climbing the Sierra Nevada and getting hungry in Donner Pass. But the Adirondacks are every bit as good as any ten thousand foot pass. My wife caught the artist at work.

The towns are small, intimate and offer old fashioned roadside refreshments. We stopped for frozen custard, Cheyenne rolled in the grass and in the distance we could hear kids playing on the lake beach. This is America from the good old days that probably only existed in our imaginations.

While I'm in a mellow mood let me point out that New York also offers a cultural advantage that travelers through New Hampshire and Vermont can only dream of: pull outs. Roadside parking, vista points, all these are an unknown value in the minor states. New York gets this. It's a state filled with invitations to stop and savor the beauty of the Empire State. We spotted some superb views up New Hampshire rivers but the reason you see no pictures here is because there was nowhere to stop on narrow winding roads with no shoulders never mind pull outs.

Saranac Lake gave us a lunch to remember, as we bypassed the hot dogs and burgers lining the lakes.

A reviewer compared this place to something out of Northern Exposure so naturally we were hooked and Eat and Meet Grill did not disappoint.

Funky inside delicious on the plate, tuna, a spicy Jamaican beef patty Dion's could learn to emulate in the Keys, and poutine which we didn't get to taste in Canada. It was proper with cheese curds, brown gravy and hand cut fries. The apple crisp for pudding was perfect.

Back to the road... more lakes, forests, dips, humps, views, forests, twists and turns.

Then when we descended at long last from the mountains we got into the plains that lead to Syracuse, our destination. However there was a bit if an obstacle and this one came from the ski. We were on the freeway in farm country when a huge black thunderhead appeared, stretching right across the horizon. Lightning flashed the length of the thing, a long black ugly cloud dropping half a dozen lightning bolts at once. We actually pulled over and called Steve who was in his weather command center. Which coincided with the moment Layne's cellphone went off with a tornado warning. WTF? I was seriously thinking we should go back five miles to the La Quinta we passed instead of making forty more miles to the homemade dinner that awaited us.

Steve reassured us the massive thunderhead, which he admitted stretched to Pennsylvania, was quite thin and we should be fine. Er...OK... And as we pulled out of the rest stop the wind struck, rocked our fully loaded car, and swept thick heavy rain horizontal across the road. Hmm... I was hoping Steve was right and this monster was narrow and we'd be through it quick. Meanwhile it was horrendous, as bad as anything I've driven through in the Keys, thick slashing rain, zero visibility and a whole bunch of cars that didn't know what they were doing. I pressed on into the rain and wind on the theory that the sooner we were through...the sooner we were somewhere better. Cars were pulling over, others were trundling along in tight groups like ducklings waddling after their mothers. That's the best of all so when the leader stops everyone crashes into each other. I focused on vehicle avoidance and kept one eye on the stripe at the side of the road.

Eventually we got out of it of course and then we got stuck in stopped traffic. Someone had wrecked. Bummer. We crawled slowly forward for what seemed forever. The road was wet and covered with leaves. The blue lights kept us out of the right lane but we could see tumbled vehicles, a trailer and a jet ski incongruously right side up pointing straight up the road as though the rider had just stopped and stepped away. Leaving us all to figure out how to get round it and home. We picked up speed to get past the rubber neckers and at the exit we came across a speed limit sign lying in the roadway. Oops! Missed that, dodged a branch, raised a ruckus of fallen green leaves in our wake.

We were lucky. Four people died near Syracuse that afternoon, one man with his dog when a tornado lifted a house off its foundations and dumped it next door. Leaving his vehicle intact in the driveway. 500,000 people lost power. We were fine:

God loves fools and drunks and I am not, despite my place of residence, a drunk.

Cheyenne and I had a lovely evening walk in a quiet wooded neighborhood, damp from the rain, cool from the breeze. Perfectly gorgeous. And so to bed.

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Coffee, Wine And Nearly Ice Cream In Vermont.

We liked New Hampshire with its dramatic mountains and "notches" as the passes are called, and we enjoyed Vermont with its more rolling hills packed into a tiny size, measured by us crossing in three hours from New Hampshire to Burlington and we weren't trying to hurry. Monday was to be devoted to checking out the area around the university town of Burlington. Forty minutes into our exploratory dog walk rain stopped play, huge icy drops that had even the locals running for cover.

Well, we said, let's find a museum or something indoors, and a passerby mentioned Shelburne Museum down Highway 7, so nothing loathe, off we went. And of course it was pouring rain and the museum is lovely but is scattered across the fields so we said sod this lets get lunch. Soup, sandwich and coffee restored us and we, being flexible, decided to go wine tasting instead.

Our baseline for tasting wine is Napa California where we used to go decades ago in the early days of wine's popularity. But we have visited wineries as far away as Eger in Hungary, Orvieto in Italy and as unexpected as Homestead, a Florida so to find wine bring made this far from Napa doesn't faze us. We enjoyed the low key, snobbery-free wines on offer in this little state with the big views.

Driving Vermont us half the fun with narrow winding toads just crying out for a motorcycle, not that we encountered very many, but I thoroughly enjoyed the UnFlorida curves and twists, and the greenery all around and above us, glimpsed through the sunroof.

The Fourth of July just past added some bright colors along the way as we hunted down the valley where chocolate, cheese, coffee and ice cream are produced in this industrious state.

Green Mountain Coffee claims a corporate conscience, of the sort the Walton family could never learn to emulate and they produce a very drinkable coffee at the same time. Their café and and oublic access is in this railway building attached to the working station of Waterbury on the line between Burlington and Montpelier.

We went inside and got free samples, and checked the usual dust catchers in display.

They had artifacts produced in distant countries where Green Mountain us working to create jobs and local economies. Layne shopped with a conscience..!

While Cheyenne was her usual patient self.

The coffee making prices I found fascinating, explained in film...

...and with actual beans from the manufacturing process.

With a reminder that Green Mountain does well by doing good.

We sat around outside as they shut up shop and enjoyed the coffees we bought. It was a pleasant spot overlooking the park in Waterbury.

Then we removed ourselves to see that other Vermont icon in action, though I have to say that when we pulled into the parking lot we were swarmed by a sea of jolly visitors mostly pre-teenagers and we took one look at each other and said "some other time." I fear I shall live to regret not checking out how they make their delightful ice cream.

The road back to Burlington was plunging into darkness in the valley, looking lovely and menacing at the same time.

On the chore of Lake Champlain the sun was still high enough to make it daylight as websites for the Plattsburgh ferry, a 15 minute ride to New York at a dollar a minute. It runs every ten minutes 24 hours a day so I must suppose lots of people want to cross the northern tip of the lake though where they go and why I couldn't say.

We were planning a long day's drive to Syracuse to see friends so we wanted an easy start on the New York side of the lake.

It was a twenty minute drive once we landed to get to the La Quinta in Plattsburgh, our jumping off point for our drive through the Adirondacks.

Our early morning walk revealed mainstream shopping once again, acres of parking anonymous chain stores and convenience. Time to take off for the woods once more.

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