Ithaca Trip - Saturday

We woke up Saturday morning in Elmira to pouring rain. Should we dare walk outside? We decided to stall and go to the Corning Museum of Glass.
The science part was quite interesting, and the opening movie was bizzarre to the point of being hilarious.
In the exhibit rooms everyone else quickly tired of looking at object after glass object, including a huge array of paperweights.

Luckily the rain cleared a bit, so we dated to continue on to Watkin's Glen.

Along the way we stopped for Cheese.

We originally sped by the sign on Route 414, but like a siren song it drew us back. We then procedded to harass some poor farmer, but we did buy plenty of cheese so it worked out in the end.

Sorry, I took the picture from a moving car through a rainy windshield, so you cannot see the cheese sign in all of its glory.
CHEESE
Watkin's Glen was amazing. Sadly, the batteries in my camera were all but dead so I lost most of the pictures, and those that survived aren't the best.
The glen is an amazing gorge, with waterfall upon waterfall as you climb 800+ steps. Here's a glimpse of the gorge.
Watkin's Gorge
You get to walk behind a waterfall at one point. It was what I imagine Henneth-Annûn must look like.
Window of the West
Here's rainbow falls, a smaller fall you can walk behind. Sadly, with no sun, there was no rainbow.
Rainbow Falls

We reached the end of the trail, climbed a huge stairway called "Jacob's Ladder" and then turned around and went back. The park is heartily recommended.
After visiting Seneca Lake, we hit all of the waterfalls in Montour Falls.

One is right by the roadside, Aunt Sarah's Falls. Kris and I were there during the drought of '02 and it was completely dry.
Aunt Sarah's Falls
Then we went to She-Qua-Ga falls, which also was mostly dry the last time we saw it.

This time it was more impressive, but not as much as the "spring flood" picture they had at the info booth.
She-Qua-Ga Falls
Then on to Eagle's Nest Falls at Havana Glen park.
The placid fall we stood under in September was now a roaring torrent.
Eagle's Nest Falls

It was sad the water was too rough to approach the falls, but there is a nice park there as well. There was first-rate playground equipment, including a trapeze-bar! I haven't seen one of those since my elementray school days.
And that was the end of Saturday. We headed to a rather run-down Super 8 in Binghamton and spent the evening there.

On Sunday we returned yet again to Taughanock for the benefit of Kris's family. I managed to get my shoes soaking wet fording the river, which took an impressive week to dry. The water was much higher than it had been on Friday, and many stick-boats met their untilmely demise over rapids by our hands.

We returned to Maryland Sunday evening. I only got us slightly lost trying to get to route 15.

And thus ended another chapter of our journey to gather all of the sacred scrolls needed to rebuild the Mako reactor we need to generate the mystical vorpal knife of +10 buttering that is prophesied will kill the insufferable llama of the plains.

[well ok, I guess that's inaccurate but it sounds much more dramatic than the actual ending, which was a lot of well-needed sleep].
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