Before last year, (we) Keith and Christine had planned an annual week of outdoor activity in July or August. We dropped the kids off with Grandma and Grandpa Waldron and went cycling for a couple of years before spending the next few years in the Adirondacks hiking the high peaks.
Last year, Keith changed jobs in July and had no time off from work.
This year? COVID. That meant no hotels, nice restaurants, or over-crowded trailheads for us. Grandma and Grandpa still took the kids for a few days, but this time we stayed home and local.
Christine has far greater conditioning than Keith this summer, so long mornings spent cycling was out of the question, so we purchased inflatable paddleboards and planned to explore local waters and hike everyday.
The first day was spent at Taughannock State Park. The falls were near dry and were only a trickle. Keith had both cameras with him, but only used the IR body this date; to be honest, the falls weren’t worth photographing.
After walking to and from the falls, we pumped up the paddleboards and headed off into Seneca Lake.
Christine was a champ on the board from the start and never fell off – never once in 3 days.
Keith was a chump and fell of the board in the first 3 minutes and he would continue to fall off another 5 times in the next 2 hours. Sadly, there are not any pictures, because we needed to use Christine’s phone holder for the car keys.
After some ice cream, we went to Robert Treman State Park and hiked the gorge.
The trail was nice, but the water wasn’t running as it has in the past. Still there was at least a few opportunities for Keith to make a few images:
We grabbed some take-out for dinner from Bull and Bear in Fayetteville … nothing special, just comfort bar-food.
The following day, Keith took Christine to another park with a gorge trail, Fillmore Glen. Unfortunately, he didn’t look to closely at the state park’s website: if he had, he’d have noticed that the gorge trail was closed for repair this summer season. #oops
The walk was nice – we covered 4.5 miles, but it sorta sucked hearing the gorge below and never seeing it. The only flowing water that we saw that day was at the “Cowsheds”. We have no idea why that is the name of the area:
After walking the park, we went to the southern end of Owasco Lake at the public access canoe/kayak launch to pump up and put in the paddleboards. We pumped up the boards and started to walk in the water, only to discover that the ground was soft silt and the water was too shallow. The farther we walked out, the board still wouldn’t float, and we were eventually knee-deep in silty soil and forced to retreat. That is when we discovered the leaches. Needless to say, Christine was not at all pleased. Keith wasn’t exactly thrilled, either. (Sorry, no pics. Keith thought about getting out the camera, but was a little too put off by the creepy things sucking on his legs to follow through before removing separating himself from the blood-sucking vermin).
After deflating the boards, driving to the north side of the lake to the public beach, and re-inflating the boards (yes, manually) we got back into the water. Keith only fell 2 times on this date.
After a successful couple hours on the lake and 2 miles paddled, we packed up and drove to North Syracuse to pick-up some pizza from Toss and Fire to bring to Full Boar Brewery, where we sat outside at a picnic table and enjoyed our meal and brew.
The next day was spent on independent activities before putting the paddleboard in at the south shore of Cazenovia Lake. This time, Keith only went in the water once, and it was on purpose … so he is getting a little better.
Before she went into the water, Christine wasn’t sure how easy it would be to get back up and onto her board (despite watching Keith do it over and over the 3 days prior), but she handled it. Like a boss.
It wasn’t a trip to the ADK, but it was enjoyable and offered us some much needed respite from work, COVID, and (no offense, you two) and kids.
Now we wait and see if a family trip to Acadia National Park is in the cards in early autumn. #fingerscrossed