July 4th afternoon

Back when Jim and I got married in November of 2008, we were given a gift certificate to the Sherwood Inn in Skaneateles (skinny atlas).  We had a great weekend stay there and came away with credit still on the GC.  We thought we'd use it for our first anniversary but alas something came up, probably weather, and the GC just sat on the fridge all these months (years).

During the summer we like to take day trips around the state.  Jim has a gps in his head and loves to just turn off a main road and meander around the countryside always coming out where we need to be. Summer is so lush, our state so pretty, almost anywhere is beautiful.  So for July 4th we decided to drive up to Skaneateles Lake, have a nice lunch on the 'porch' and then meander on home.  We saw lots of wildflowers, fields of corn and wheat and folks out enjoying themselves.

While we enjoyed our meal, folks were strolling by across the street by the lake, walking dogs, pushing carriages, flying balloons, paddling and in general relaxing on a nice sunny July 4th day.

It all reminded me of a Seurat painting "The Picnic",  minus the cars of course.

The food was excellent and the service way above average leaving us feeling sated and happy. I hardly ever drink but felt this was a special occasion so ordered a Blue Moon draft.  I may never drink it bottled again.  It was delicious.  Not as fizzy as normal bottled beer, not filtered either.  The orange slice on the glass was a perfect accompaniment.   I actually almost finished a whole glass.

 Jim decided he wanted to head home by going west on route 20 and then cut down route 89 on the west side of Cayuga Lake.  I joked that we were almost at 89 as we were going to cross 90.  He said, hmmmnnnn and turned left on 90.  We followed it for a while and it surprisingly led us down to Lock #1 at the top of Cayuga Lake.

Coincidentally, while we were meandering, my sister sent me a NYT story link about a photographer who recently paddled part of the Erie Canal.  She was way east of us and our lock is in much better repair but the story is interesting.

They are dredging this lock and doing some repairs.  It looks freshly painted too.

view looking north to canal

Years ago I paddled this end of the lake with some friends.  It's rather shallow so does not resemble the southern end where Ithaca is at all.

view looking south to lake

We drove through some lakeside towns down past Aurora where Wells College resides and south to Ithaca.

Such a lovely lovely day which was only made better by some spinning in the evening.

More details on this Tour de Fleece project tomorrow.