I officially commandeered Memorial Day weekend to celebrate my birthday...considering that equates to going on a long weekend vacation, Mike's not complaining! This year, we took off a few days early and went to the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. Wow - what an amazing place! So amazing, in fact, that we're going to head back next weekend. :)
Part of the reason for the return is because our day #1 was a little bit of a bust. We took a couple hour detour to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame - one of Mike's bucket list items. We had lunch at a local brewery, Ommegang, and while we were finishing up we overheard some locals chatting about how busy it was in town. We had to ask what was going on...President Obama was in town to give a speech. You guessed it: at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Apparently the protesters had gotten out of hand, so the museum was closed all day. Unfortunately, the speech wasn't announced until just a few days prior, so we didn't have any clue about it. Ironically, the speech was supposed to support tourism. As we were driving away, we noticed 5 military helicopters flying directly toward Cooperstown in formation...it had to have been the President flying to his speech! So, we're going to try again in about a week.
We arrived at our B&B in the Finger Lakes that night and the B&B is the other reason we're heading back. We stayed at just the most beautiful Victorian home, and the owners were just fabulous! We had an incredible stay the whole time. In fact, Mike already blogged about it
HERE.
As a special birthday treat, Mike got us a driver to take us around to the wineries on our first fully day. It was so luxurious! And also so nice to have - we could try out 7 wineries on our first day! We didn't travel too far around the Finger Lakes over the weekend. We stayed around our one lake and the one immediately next to it because there was so much to do. Penn Yan was the little city we stayed in - and it's just beautiful! We could walk everywhere in town which was just perfect for us, and on Memorial Day they even had a parade that went right by our B&B's front door!
We did get to many wineries and even a local brewery (they're apparently on the rise there too!), but also we were able to explore some really amazing small towns. One of the favorite things we did was go for a hike at Watkins Glen. There's a gorge there that is just stunningly beautiful! Apparently we weren't the only ones looking for a good hike - there was a line up to park, and apparently a VERY large touring group all got let off at the same time. Luckily we went the opposite way and could enjoy and take lots of pictures once they passed. And I've now learned, nothing is quite as refreshing after a long hike as a nice chilled glass of Riesling!
On our way home we did the detour thing again, but this time it worked! We stopped in Corning to view the glass museum there (thanks for the tip Mom and Dad!). It was incredible to see to much history and art - all glass - in one place. It was an incredibly memorable weekend...can't wait to go back!
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| Our haul from a fabulous weekend! |
