Keuka Lake Camping!

This fellow is a Walking Stick and we hadn't seen one of these for a long time. He decided to sit and bask in the sun on the outside of our tent. We gently extracted him and put him in the woods when it was time to leave. He does look like a stick though!


Well, we spent the better part of last week on our annual camping trip with friends. We try to check out the wonderful state parks in New York on these trips. This was our second year at Keuka Lake which has very nice campsites as well as a beautiful lake for boating and swimming (although there were no lifeguards this year so no swimming).

We always seem to have a lot of Daddy Long Legs visiting our tent as well.

This I believe is a Silvery Checkerspot which we saw on our visit to Letchwork State Park. We were going to camp there originally but the men decided they liked Keuka better so Debi and I spent my birthday over there driving the length of the park and getting out to view the three sets of falls and the Genesee River Gorge.

It was a picture perfect day at Letchworth and this was a field of Black Eyed Susans that was attracting the above butterfly. I did see one other butterfly but couldn't get a good enough picture to identify it.

This is the Upper Falls which is the southernmost falls for the Genesee River which runs south to north and dumps into Lake Ontario in Rochester. They are very large falls carved out during the Ice Ages and glaciers withdrawing which are common in the Finger Lakes region which hosts falls at Watkins Glen, Montour Falls and Rappahanock Falls as well as several in the town of Ithaca.

This is looking toward the Middle Falls with the High Falls in the background.

Here are the Lower Falls from above. You can somewhat see the size of these falls with the people in the foreground.

Debi and Bill bring their three labs with them camping and their huge bus is in the background. We still go with just a tent and air mattresses. We ALWAYS have to get a site near the bathrooms though for me!

Warren went out sailing on Keuka Lake the last day we were there. It has been a while since he went out on the Sunfish with its new sail. There was very little wind though for the first time of our stay!

Down near Naples NY, there is a huge expanse of these wind turbines on top of the hills. You can see them for miles and people really think they are a bit ugly but I kind of like the stark white of the windmills with the blue sky .