Robert H. Treman State Park, Ithaca, New York
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. ~ Psalm 51:10-12
Today marks our two year anniversary of full-timing! We’re still loving it!
Letchworth Falls in New York!
June, 2017
The weatherman promised a lovely day today, so we drove into the town of Ithaca to check out their advertised waterfalls. Not all of them, because there’s over 150! But we saw quite a few. And our walk around the Cornell University area was one of the most interestingly different hikes we’ve been on.
We began by trying to find the town’s visitor center. It wasn’t easy, but we finally found them tucked away on a street that you can’t drive down. Certainly not the venue you’d think a visitor center should be. Anyway, we talked to the woman there who marked up a map for us, and off we went – in search of.
Before we begin, it’s kinda important that you have a bit of history. The State Park where we’re staying is named for Robert Treman, and very generous man and his wife Laura. In 1920, they donated 387 acres to the State and upon his death in 1938, the Park was named in his honor. Since then, the Park has grown to over 1,000 acres. The Treman’s donated several other tracks of land in the area for recreational/nature appreciation, including providing the entrance to Cornell University’s Cascadilla Trail.
We began here. A ¾ mile long trail along Cascadilla Creek with amazing waterscapes, including 8 waterfalls that ranged in size from 8’ to 80’!
It’s beautiful already and we just got started!
leaving flat edges! It sometimes looks manmade.
Once we got to the end, instead of returning the way we’d come, we decided to walk the streets. Everything is on a hill, so there was a lot of up and down. Not so great for Blaine’s knees, but he was wearing braces on both and carrying a hiking stick, so he did pretty well.
I wasn’t going to include it because it didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped,
but it looked too interesting. . . . : )
We’re on a bridge sidewalk on a fairly busy street. . . .
Lucky for you, Blaine’s knees weren’t up to rambling through the countryside looking at tombstones. : )
And surely there were people buried in the middle . . .
what did they do with them???
We returned to the Jeep and headed off in search of the 215’ Taughannock Falls. At 33’ higher than Niagara Falls, it’s the highest single drop waterfall in the eastern United States. And if that isn’t awe-inspiring enough, the canyon walls are over 400’ high!
This is where we chose to enjoy our meager lunch. What a sight! And doubly nice because we shared it with friends. 😊
There’s a trail here that takes you along the rim of the gorge for different views of the falls, and we were told there was another large waterfall along the way. Another remarkable one!
You know the saying . . . . everything old is new again!
In our experience, fake news and ruses have been around since the media began.
And probably before that!
Wow!
After that, we got back in the Jeep and drove to the entrance of the Gorge Trail that goes to the foot of the Taughannock Falls. Yet another great view! With several more waterfalls along the way. During our walk to the base, we noticed people walking along the side of the river, so on the return, I managed to talk Blaine into giving it a try. It’s a sad commentary that I had to ‘talk him into it’. When his knees were healthy, he would’ve led the charge. We did it for a while before we lost our ‘path’ to the powers of nature. (in other words, the river encroached to the bank, so we had to exit)
We saw the old 1873 house as we were driving down the road. It was beautiful!
But look up river and you can just barely make out some rebels. : )
(on the right side of the river)
And look at the fallen rock here!
See that little rectangle of sky between the trees?
That’s the observation area where we ate lunch!
There was a hoard of college kids taking a ba-zillion pictures and selfies here.
They were wearing stick-on, hand written name tags,
so it must have been some kind of group.
Isn’t that something?!?!?! It sure doesn’t look to be over 200′ though, does it?
We came across this snake trying to cross the path without getting stepped on.
the longest of the Finger Lakes, and the one Ithaca sits at the base of.
The last stop was a quick visit to Buttermilk Falls, another State Park. The falls are really close to the parking lot, which was good because Blaine was about done in. They were working on the swimming area here, too.
We still had a stop to make at WalMart, so we used the facilities. Let’s just say, if you’re going to use them in this park, you had best be sure to do all your business inside the stall with the door closed! Men’s and Women’s each had giant windows on the entrance door that looked directly into the stall and sink area! I would’ve taken a picture to show you, but since it was occupied, I felt that would be too much of an invasion of privacy.
Oh. And I think there was a tick crawling on the wall of the stall I chose. . . . Ugh!!!
We got new neighbors while we were gone, and they have at least two birds! The one at the window is an African Grey Parrot. We’ve never seen anyone camp with birds before. They also have a Jack Russell Terrier.
And despite the sign at the water supply telling you not to stay connected, they did.
Fortunately, Blaine had filled us up when we first arrived. Did I mention that? I don’t think I did. This Park and the next one only have electric hook-ups. That means Blaine has to make sure our 100 gallon water tank gets filled up in order for us to have any water. Works fine for 5 days. 😊
And then it began to pour down the rain . . . .
