Summer Part 2: Venturing Out

   We canceled our trip to Tennessee and the Blue Ridge Parkway since the virus was bad, but were determined to go visit our daughter in DC and then my cousin Kathy at her beach house in Delaware.  As we talked about it, we both wanted to do more, but what could we do in the age of corona?  We heard wonderful things about Maine and since we had also heard it was a popular vacation spot for Canadians it sounded uncrowded and good. The problem is that to visit there we needed either a negative corona test within 72 hours of showing up at the state line or the ability to quarantine for 14 days. Neither seemed likely so we gave up on that idea - for this year. We had pretty much given up on the Finger Lakes region of NY thinking we couldn't go there either.  Then we realized we could, so before anyone changed their minds we were off.  Yep 36 hours after deciding to go there, we were in the car heading there. Made the reservation on Thursday afternoon and left on Saturday for a very long 14 hour straight thru drive. Stopped at truck stops and roadside rest stops I think lunch was a Chick-Fil-A somewhere or maybe Panera - eating in the car.  Dinner was from a New York Highway plaza that was barely open. The other two restaurants were closed. We had a choice of a Tim Horton or the vending machines. Lucking Tim Horton has more than breakfast food!!  We ate outside at a picnic table and then back on the road.

Finger Lakes, NY

   We stayed at a B & B I had seen on the Fodors website which had a AAA 4 star rating and sounded nice. It was a wonderful choice - more so than I realized at the time. It was a very comfortable place for us. The innkeeper lived onsite in an apartment in the second level of the barn on the property with her 89-year-old mother. So she was very determined to keep her mother safe and provide still the very nice experience the place was known for. She succeeded. Every morning she served a gourmet breakfast - the first day was fresh fruit, crème Brule french toast, and sausages.  Every morning was heavenly good. When the weather was good, we had an assigned table for 2 with a tablecloth, fine china in a garden. By the way, it was a very pretty garden. On the two overcast mornings, we sat indoors - more than 6 feet from anyone else. Because we were there during the week, we were their only guests part of the time. If you go to Canandaigua, NY in the Finger Lakes I highly recommend the 1795 Acorn Inn.  We were in the Hotchkiss room on the first floor with our own little patio. Oh and a funny thing is we were in the township of Bristol. Bristol was going to be one of our first stops in England so we made it to Bristol; just not the one we had planned on visiting!

   Breakfast the last morning in Finger Lakes.  The red on the table by my hand is my mask. Notice too the ribbon with hand sanitizer on the door behind me.  

   The gardens are the above picture and our patio is the bottom picture.

   When one decides to go somewhere and leaves 36 hours later, there isn't a lot of time for planning of activities! Cheryl the innkeeper helped us out some.  We knew we wanted to visit wineries, maybe hike a little, some bike riding, and maybe a little golf. Cheryl suggested the two wineries we visited and she was right on with her recommendations. Had an idea for a bike ride/kayak trip and a hike to a waterfall. We visited Herron Hill Winery first. While sitting in the tasting room drinking our wines and nibbling on cheese and meat talking with our server who was a local school teacher we could look down the hill and see one of the lakes - Keuka. After our tasting, we sat outside on a picnic table watching the view on the lake.  It was a nice afternoon and an improvement from our morning golf game. Jeff had chosen the course because they advertised their lake view. That was true they had a gorgeous view.  But, the course was lacking. It was lacking water. The ground was so hard we saw dust fly from our balls and our balls took bounces neither of us could explain. Ah well, we got out and it was a very pretty view.

  

   The golf course with a view.  (Note the condition of the green)  We were adventuresome that day because we also headed out to Watkins Glens Falls.  See below

 

   Watkins Glen Falls is a state park. The path around all of the falls is very well built out so easy walking. Well let me clarify it is nice and level concrete for the most part, but there are something like 200 steps. If you look closely behind me in the picture you can see some of the concrete steps. The official write up says there are 19 waterfalls. Oh and yes we did have masks with us which we wore when others were around us.

   One thing we don't have pictures from is our car drives.  We took my convertible on the trip so a couple of days we just went out and drove around with the top down. We saw some of the area that way including some of the other touristy areas like Geneva and the other lakes. We went to Ben and Jerry's in one small town and a marina was a couple of blocks away that looked like it would be a blast in a normal summer.  Like so many things these days we had to have reservations for tastings at the wineries in the Finger Lakes. Cheryl had recommended 3 wineries - we visited 2 of them. Hermann J Wiemer Vineyard was the second one and my favorite of the 2. We had a table for 2 on a smaller shaded patio. The tasting was set up a little differently - you picked, however, many wines you wanted and then they priced it according to how much you tasted. Each wine tasting came out in a small carafe that you could pour into your glass. It made it easy for us to share. Since the law said we had to have food too, we were served a little tray with some nuts, popcorn, and dried fruit. It was a very relaxing experience - our host came and checked in on us every so often, but otherwise, you were enjoying nice wine on your own patio. They taught us that the climate in the Finger Lakes is very similar to Germany's so they grow many of the same grapes thus making a lot of German-style wines. We had a couple of different Rieslings and in fact, I brought a bottle of one home. I ended my tasting with some of their sparkling wine which was quite nice too. On our final day in the Finger Lakes, we drove to Pittsford, NY to the Erie Canal. We thought we would ride bikes along the canal, but that was not to be.  We did walk it some which were interesting and nice and we had a nice beer at a restaurant overlooking it.  If ever in the area, I would go back there.

 Washington DC

   DC was our next stop on our trip.  We were both looking forward to seeing our daughter.  For this part of the trip, we had rented from a long term stay hotel in town so we could cook some of our own meals. We had also downloaded an electronic version of our room key so we could do the contactless check-in. Um yeah not so much. Seems like many downtown hotels you need an actual key to unlock elevators and some of the exterior doors. So they had to give us room keys after all. Also don't you love the sign that welcomed us!

    

   We also learned that DC was very strict about mask-wearing. You were required to wear a mask when you were outside unless you were exercising or eating. No mention of if you can not keep 6-foot distance - nope it was wear a mask. So we wore masks. Hopefully years from now it will be easy to know what year it was that we have a family picture in front of the WWII memorial with masks on!

    

   We walked around the basin and along the Potomac River, the Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington Memorials on Sunday. We fortified ourselves at the Federalist Farmer with a very nice Sunday brunch before we started out.  

Railroad, PA

   Jeff and I had gotten in on Thursday night in time for dinner. Then Friday the three of us headed up to Pennsylvania in search of some family roots. Jeff's maternal grandparents had a furniture factory near York. He knew that the factory had been near a town/borough called Railroad too. GPS got us close to it all and in fact right by a rails to trails park so out we got and started exploring. The Innkeeper at a B & B knew of the factory and set us down the trail parallel the train tracks. Jeff knew that the factory had a sign from the days of passenger rail service that faced the railroad tracks rather than any road. When we saw this sign Jeff compared the current sign to an old picture he had found on the internet a few years back and compared - yep we were in the correct place.

    

   Seems the local park district repurposed the supports when they set up the new park!  But where was the factory? Jeff knew that while it had been nearby it had never been visible from the train tracks.  after we got in the car and drove a little we did find it. Looks like someone had started to do something with it - some newer facades, but it was now vacant. The picture below is the main town of Railroad and the bike trail is there too. You can see there are still train tracks.  In fact, as we were leaving a small tourist train went by.

Fenwick Island, DE

   From DC we headed to my cousin's place at the beach.  We hesitated a little going there at the last minute because the tropical storm Isaias was heading that way and we wondered if it was a wise time to go. After assurances that flooding was not expected and that the convertible could be kept undercover, we hopped in the car and went. It was about a 4 to 5-hour drive and for the most part interesting to Jeff and I since it is a part of the country we are not that familiar with. We saw lots of farms and passed several farmers' markets. Traveled over bodies of water that had just been names to us before. We got to the end of the road, hung a left, and went a couple of blocks and found their place. They are right in town, but without high rise condo buildings the traffic wasn't too bad and they had a back road they could use to get to places.  Have to admit a little jealous of how easily they can eat at a variety of places.  

   The beach was a very short walk away and of course over a dune.  We walked the beach the first day some and sat around and talked. Learned to the south where it looked more crowded was Ocean City, MD with high rises and to the north was a state park and then expensive homes and eventually Rehoboth, DE.  In the end, we would get out on the beach for all 3 days we were there. Yes, tropical storm Isaias hit, and yes it knocked out the power for a while, but we all got a laugh because it was worse in the DC/Baltimore area where we each had a child suffering through it.  Sorry no pictures, but a great little beach town and a good time had with good friends.

 Poconos, PA

   We drove north along the coast for a while which was nice because to us it was all new and we both love the beach.  Then headed west around Philadelphia and onto the Poconos and in particular East Stroudsburg for our second extended-stay hotel.  We had a nasty surprise at the first extended-stay hotel - a kitchenette does not include an oven.  We had a refrigerator, a microwave, 2 burner cooktop, but no oven which was a problem since we needed an oven for a couple of the dishes we had chosen from Hello Fresh!  So this time we stopped at a Wegman's grocery store in Allentown, PA, and stocked up on some ready to heat dishes from them.  Wegman's is a nice chain that does a lot of partially prepared dishes.  Our first night we had a couple of dishes we simply microwaved and a couple of other nights we did dishes on the cooktop.  

   Sorry to say, but the Poconos were underwhelming.  It seemed like a place that had been nice at one time but now was rundown.  We had good friends joining us later in our stay or we probably would have left earlier.  Now not everything was bad, it just wasn't the Finger Lakes.  

   We were very close to the Delaware Water Gap National Park so of course, we checked that out promptly.  We ran into a problem we had in NY too - no one was currently renting bicycles.  So even though there were trails we would have loved to ride along the river, it was not to be.  Jeff tried to talk me into floating, but I wasn't interested.  We did have another convertible top-down drive though!

   Bushkill Falls - Niagara of PA per the advertising.  This is actually a commercial place, not a state park.  It claims to have the largest falls in PA and they were big.  Thanks to the recent tropical storm the falls were really moving.  In some of the pictures, the water looks kind of brown that is not mud but tannin picked up from the rocks.  We of course hiked the longest route and had our masks with us for when we saw others.

   This is towards the end of our hike. We had seen similar rock pilings earlier on our way, but this area was full of them. They made me think of a meditation spot.

   My cousin had informed us there were wineries in the Poconos. In fact, there was a couple near us. In the end, we only visited one and we actually went to it twice. True to its name, Mountain View Winery has a very pretty setting in the mountains. It is a newer facility with a deep porch on 2 sides meant to sit on which is very convenient these days. The first time we went during their "happy hour" and had our food for half price. It was Friday night and their entertainment started shortly before we left - he was pretty good. We decided we would take our friends there when they got into town.  We did.  The winery was also a brewery and distillery too so Jeff and I decided to try a beer each when we went back.  Jeff really liked their Randy's Brandy Barrel-Aged beer (it was a porter) - so did I.

Milford

   Our friends had mentioned a little town called Milford that they had thought cute years ago so off we went one day. We had a nice drive there and walked around it some, but not a lot open at least on a Sunday afternoon. This is the old hotel/restaurant we ate at. We sat on the porch and watched a lot of motorcyclists go by. We had driven there with the top down and had to agree it was a pretty area for a drive.    

Jim Thorpe - last town, I promise

   So are you surprised there is a town in PA named after an athlete who lived elsewhere?  Seems that in 1953 after his death his wife wanted a fitting tribute to him. She moved his body to what was then Mauch Chunk, PA, and East Mauch Chunk. The towns agreed to merge and name the new town Jim Thorpe. We wandered around the town on a quiet Monday. There was a nice looking live theatre/opera house, but due to pandemic was closed. We also saw some people white water rafting. The Appalachian Trail is nearby as are other hiking areas and there was a B & B that is an old mansion that has a popular series of mystery dinner weekends so Jim Thorpe could be a fun few days. We had a nice day wandering and a little shopping.

Dingman's Falls and Silver Thread Falls

   On our last day in the Poconos, we visited these 2 waterfalls in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We thought we were going to get a short hike to each of the falls only to find that the road back was closed so instead we had a mile hike each direction to the visitor center. The walk was mostly in the shade happily. The falls were pretty. Silver Thread was well named because it was skinny in width but strong in volume. Dingman's Falls was impressive too. I would love to visit in the spring some year when the rhododendrons which are huge and thick are in bloom.

Lafayette, IN

   Onto our last stop - Lafayette, IN, and a chance to visit Jeff's, Aunt Mary. We were supposed to go to her 100th birthday party in March, but it got canceled days before the big day due to the virus. We were lucky to get to go inside to see her since inside visits had just started at the assisted living center the week before. It was good to see her and catch up with her. Then homeward we went.