Winter Vacation to the Finger Lakes

Introduction

We’d been inside the house on the ongoing, COVID-occasioned, try not to mingle too much light quarantine since October, so these same four walls, same routines, and same behaviors are really wearing us down. On top of that we had successfully navigated the straits of the darkest and coldest parts of the year, so we were really feeling the need to get back out.

Unfortunately, the New England states’ guidelines all indicate that New Yorkers were not wanted (not without non-light quarantine, at any rate). As such, we decided to try to get some natural exposure within New York state. As we pondered where to go, we concluded that we wanted to go back to the Finger Lakes, where we visited this Summer, again.

We thought it’d be nice to do our previous trip two seasons later so that we could see what that upstate life looks like outside of its most idyllic season — that is in depth of winter. Afterward, we decided we’d do a bit of a “staycation” and enjoy NYC for a few days.

February 26: NYC → Binghamton

After working a half day, I picked up a car and we started our drive upstate. We ran into some heavy traffic heading up the West side of Manhattan, so we wound up getting going properly a bit later than we’d intended. We made good progress, but decided to stop in Binghamton, NY overnight.

I can say absolutely nothing about Binghamton except for that they have a lovely Hilton downtown. When we searched to try to find things to do, we couldn’t find anything. When Lauren asked the concierge what there was to do in the city, she said, “not much.” So, we left.

February 27: Binghamton to Ithaca

Binghamton lies just about 90 minutes south of Ithaca, so after a leisurely exit from the hotel, we arrived in Ithaca fairly early. The Marriott on the Commons there is designed to house parents visiting Cornell or Ithaca College, but, with COVID strictures in place, it was largely empty. As such, we were able to check in early, get unpacked, and then head back out and make the most of the day. The hotel is adjacent to Ithaca’s walkable downtown district so we proceeded to explore downtown some.

We first visited The Outdoor Store and were able to visit with two resident golden retrievers there, Lulu and Riley. Lauren picked up some better gloves there while Byron played with little Lulu. He pulled us to the store and, as we neared, Lulu bounded at the door to open it up for this new stranger. It was adorable. Once inside the store, we were free to unleash Byron and she and he bounded throughout the store and clothes racks playing that unfathomable game known to all dogs.

After our purchase and Byron’s raid of Lulu’s kibble bowl, we were able to head out to the wilderness.

The 27^th was unseasonably sunny and beautiful so we went to visit some of the falls in the area comfortably. We headed out to Cayuga lake. We had tried to visit it on our previous visit, but had been blocked in this effort because there’d been some sort of medical accident (yikes!) in the area.

As the saying goes, “ITHACA IS GORGES.” After a good day of hiking, we headed back to the hotel and watched the penultimate episode of WandaVision.

February 28: Ithaca

The weather was turning for the worse, so we spent some time in Ithaca. We visited Ithaca Falls (inside the town limits):

Ithaca falls

and then headed out to the Ithaca mall in the hunt for some ice skates for yours truly. It was a real joy to be able to patronize the local business “Instant Replay Sports.” The manager was very helpful and lined me up with some Bauer Vapor hockey skates.

For lunch, Lauren and I grabbed bagel sandwiches from Ithaca Bakery (next to Instant Replay Sports) and it was great. We also picked up some food and supplies (including a fleece blanket for Byron) before heading back to the hotel.

That evening we dined out at “The Mahogany Grill.” We had delicious Italian food and cocktails and, I believe, this was the first time we dined out, indoors in roughly a year.

March 1: Last Day in Ithaca

March 1 was our final day in Ithaca, so we decided to try to visit Buttermilk falls in Winter. The only trouble with this is that the worsening weather portended snow, lots of it, intensely, soon. As such, we got up and out early.

We started the morning with a diner breakfast at the Sunset Grill, which, oddly, reminded me a lot of Shari’s Diner in San Bruno, CA in that it’s a diner with a million-dollar view over the town below.

Appropriately full of fuel, we headed off to Buttermilk Falls. We’d seen the lower part of the falls, so our goal was to hike up to the upper part of the falls. Unfortunately, the trail was thoroughly iced up and we would have needed ice crampons to traverse it safely. We hiked an eighth of a mile in and then decided that it just wasn’t safe. We hiked back out and, as we reached the parking lot, snow began to fall.

Snow at Upper Buttermilk Falls

We headed over to the beautiful botanical garden at Cornell, but things were under heavy snow cover. While the forest part of the preserve was beautiful and fun to hike through, it wasn’t long before the worsening weather suggested we should get back to shelter.

Back at the hotel, we feasted on some of our leftovers from the night before and watched the Netflix film “The Trial of the Chicago Seven” which was really good. That evening we ordered Thai food and stayed as the snow was pretty furious.

March 2: Ithaca → Scranton, PA

After a day that had been clipped short by snow, we were excited to head somewhere a bit less like a wind-and-snow-blasted desert. Fortunately the seats were warm, the heater was strong, and we were able to take a long country drive back to the highway toward Pennsylvania.

Upon reaching Scranton, we stayed at the Hilton conference center across from the (former) Lackawanna train station (now a Radisson hotel):

As we neared twilight, we headed to Scranton’s beautiful Nay Aug Park for an evening dog play and to view the twilight from high above. It was a warmer winter day and many residents were out with dogs and were seeming to greet each other after a long isolation of winter. It was a really nice community to pass through.

In honor of our overnight stay in Scranton, fictional home of Dunder-Mifflin paper products, we got (really good!) take-out dinner from “PJ’s 1910 Pub” downstairs and watched several of the funniest-rated episodes of “The Office.”

March 3: Scranton, PA → NYC

In the morning we packed up and returned to one of our favorite dining establishments in Scranton, Mansour’s Market. We had visited them during our Summer visit and we were able to dine outside on their back patio with Byron. Fortunately, they had recently re-opened for indoor dining so we enjoyed dual French Dip sandwiches before starting our final roll back into New York.

After eating, we took Byron for a walk about the neighborhood to get him relaxed and then we started the drive home. There’s not much to say except: tolls, stress, gas stations, a Starbucks, horns, and everything else you might think about New York traffic.

I dropped the car off and we enjoyed a night sleeping in our own bed.

Mar 4: Skating in Brooklyn

With our new skates freshly sharpened, we were excited to take them to the ice. We checked Byron in at Playground Pups and we headed out to Brooklyn to skate.

Mar 5: Skating in Manhattan

We again checked Byron in at “Pups” for the day and headed down to the Wollman ice rink in Central Park for another day of skating.

Conclusion

At that point it was back to the weekend. We finished WandaVision, relaxed, and settled in before returning to our routines. NYC seems to be warming and it seems that we’ve made it through another winter here.