26 Hours in Ithaca

For the second weekend in a row I took a little trip. Two weekends ago I was in Valparaiso, IN, to visit Alex, but last weekend I drove up to Ithaca, NY, to visit my friends Carl & Seth from Gustavus (Carl’s a grad student at Cornell). I didn’t head up there until Saturday morning so that I could get a full day of work in on Friday on my prospectus. I made good progress on it too, writing another two pages, so I felt good about taking a break for the weekend, at least for a couple days.
After grabbing some lunch, Carl & I went to Ithaca Falls, one of the many waterfalls in and around Ithaca, which really is “gorges,” as they say. It was quite enjoyable just to sit there and listen to the waterfall, especially with how infrequently I see water (running or otherwise) here in central PA. Eventually we got chased away when this cumulonimbus on the right matured and moved overhead (I think I might submit this one to the PSU Meteo weather calendar in the fall!). At first we were going to stick it out when it was just lightly raining. But then all of a sudden some monster drops started to fall, and I told Carl we’d better head back to the van, because it was about to start pouring in 30 seconds or so. Fortunately the dime-sized hail held off till we got back to the van! But other than that little thunderstorm, it was beautiful weather all weekend in Ithaca.
A little bit later Seth got to Ithaca (he started his drive in Waukesha, WI in the morning), and we welcomed him to town with a brewery tour of Ithaca Beer Company. And free taste testing of course. 🙂 I’ve never been on a brewery tour before, so I thought it was pretty interesting. I was somewhat surprised by how small it was too. After that we got some dinner at a good Mediterranean restaurant before spending awhile at a cool little bar called Pixel and then playing a bit of Rock Band back at Carl’s. It was a fun evening, and great to catch up with both of them again!
Then on early Sunday afternoon we drove about 15 miles north of Ithaca along the west side of Lake Cayuga to go to Tuaghannock Falls State Park. Tuaghannock Falls is about 200 feet tall (with the walls of Tuaghannock Gorge towering another 200 feet or so above that), and until a few years ago apparently was the tallest waterfall east of the Mississippi River. It used to be, that is, until a big chunk of Ithaca shale broke free from the top of the waterfall. Now it’s just the tallest waterfall on the east coast north of Georgia, haha. Those caveats still amuse me. 🙂 After going to see the falls and walking along the shore of Lake Cayuga for a bit, Carl & Seth decided to go to a nearby winery for some wine tasting, but I decided to drive back to State College so that I could get back in time for most of Bible study, and because I had designs on doing work Monday morning, even though it was Memorial Day. That, and I much prefer to drive during daylight if I can help it. I also figured that it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to head out on a 3.5-hour drive after doing wine tasting. 😉 Seth’s on an east coast road trip, and he’ll be swinging through State College on Saturday & Sunday on his way back to Waukesha, so I’ll see him (and maybe Carl) again in a few days!