Well, This Wasn't Supposed to be a Travel Blog!

Since Saturday of last week (August 11), I have been camping on beautiful Seneca Lake in the New York Finger Lakes region. We had wonderful weather and good company, my friends Debi and Bill. Besides being good company, Bill is an EXCELLENT cook so we had many wonderful meals while we were there as well!

A highlight of the trip was the ride Debi and I made to Watkins Glen State Park which is in Watkins Glen NY, right at the foot of Seneca Lake. It was about a half hour drive from our campground. Many of the Finger Lakes have
streams that feed into the south end and some rather spectacular waterfalls/gorges. I had seen the falls that fed into Cayuga Lake several times (Taughannock Falls) but had never been through the gorge at Watkins Glen. You enter the park at the bottom of the gorge and for $3 take a bus to the top end of the gorge. There is a one and one half mile walk down 800 steps through the gorge.


The gorge was "gorge-ous" as the local bumper stickers point out! There were hanging gardens all along the left hand side.

We had seen a small hanging garden at Zion National Park but nothing as long as this one at Watkins Glen.
There was a small mist of dripping water and all sorts of lichens, ferns, moss and wild flowers (wild columbine, lobelia) on the hanging garden side.
There were wild sunflowers and other wild flowers on the other side. You walk down a narrow pathway with lots and lots of stairs along the gorge which features small pools of waters, fast and slow moving streams and waterfalls. There are fantastic rock formations carved out of the stone which was laid down by glaciers millenia ago. It was very moist although the water level was low because of the dry summer we have had here. Even with that, I will definitely visit again.

The down side of the above walk is what walking down 800 steps does to your thighs and calves which have yet to recover!! I can barely walk down my slanted driveway and dread going up stairs as I know I will have to walk down them!!

We also took a quick trip over to Taughannock Falls at the foot of Cayuga Lake.
It hardly had any water but at least I didn't have to walk too far down!! Debi and I treated ourselves to the top down on her blue Mustang convertible on the way back!