Journey To The Big Land Of Gorges
Our trip in Ithaca!
Last week I wrote a TON of words about the airport because we had a terrible delay and I was not the happiest about it. I wrote so many words, in fact, that I decided to write about the trip we had to Ithaca, NY this week instead!
The start of the trip began with Jenn in the front seat with her sister Claire while I slept in the back, tired from the flight delays we had.
The first night at Claire’s was good. We caught up, ate some delicious homemade lentil soup, and then went to bed, ready for the next day of adventure.
Our first real day was spent at Robert H. Treman State Park, a beautiful park with a lot of gorgeous waterfalls and a nice swimming area!
Jenn and Claire wanted to swim, but I decided to go for a hike instead. I looked at a sign to the start of a trail that said it was two miles and thought to myself “oh, two miles isn’t so bad.”
I was wrong.
You see, what I hadn’t considered was the fact that there was elevation here so two miles was going to be very intense. And intense it was! My heart rate got up to 180bpm toward the very end, but it was worth the beautiful views I got!
There was even a little area where you could hang out in the river and take a closer look at how clear the water was!
By the time Jenn and Claire met up with me on the other side of the trail (they drove to pick me up) I was so tired. But again, it was worth it!
The next day, we hung out with Claire in the morning, going to a local coffee shop before wandering to a beautiful gorge area. But before there, I explored a little sewer pipe and got a nice little photo of me from Jenn!
Once we got to the gorge, I understood why there’s the saying “Ithaca is Gorges” but I’ll let the photo do the talking.
We hung out there for a while, but then Claire needed to go to work. Fortunately, she was able to give us a ride to the downtown area. Our first stop was at a really cute cat café! There’s one in Milwaukee I’ve always been meaning to go to, but of course my first cat café is one that’s states away. Funny how that works sometimes.
After playing with some cats, I got to do one of my favorite activities: look at CDs. As you may know, I love collecting music! There’s just so many possibilities as to what’s out there, and that really excites. And Angry Mom Records did not disappoint. They had a ton of stuff. I got some Grateful Dead albums, a Santana album, and even an Amy Winehouse album among other great stuff.
After some dinner, we walked 50 minutes back to Claire’s place where we retired for the night, tired from all the walking we did that day. The next day, we went to a super cute Farmer’s Market in Ithaca! They had some delicious breakfast sandwiches and we even got some cute shirts! Sadly, I didn’t take that many photos as it was PACKED.
After coming home from that and resting for a while, I decided to go for a run and explore one of the nearby parks while Jenn and her sister went to one of Cornell’s libraries.
I eventually met up with them, and joined them to go “ooooh” and “aaaaah” at the library.
Then I ran home, took a shower, and went out to eat at a great place in town called Moosewood! Fun fact: the Grateful Dead ate here once and nobody working at the restaurant realized it was them.
When we got here, I already knew what I wanted — a black bean burger. I knew because this was actually our THIRD time here on the trip — it was that good! The burger did not disappoint like it hadn’t the time before, and I was happy to end our trip with a final meal here.
The next morning, we got in Claire’s car and were dropped off at the airport. After a day of flying, driving, and picking up our cat Juno who had stayed at a friend’s during our trip, we were back home, happy to have traveled but also just as thrilled to be back in our bed.