A Long Way to Go for Lunch

Apparently we created a bit of a monster when we discovered FLX Fry Bird back in April when we were looking for gluten-free food after one of Jacob's basketball tournaments.  Jacob just loved his chicken and waffles (and the rest of us enjoyed our food, too), so we went back again in late May after another tournament, but under less-awesome circumstances since Jacob had just injured his foot.  He'd been begging recently to go back, and we finally had a weekend without plans so it was a distinct possibility.  We've been on the go quite a few weekends, all of July, in fact--4th of July, a baby shower, basketball/soccer, and finally a wedding/family reunion.  We hadn't been to our own church in a full month, and I felt like everything inside and outside the house was a bit of a mess because I hadn't had extended non-work time at home since early in the month when I took some vacation time.  And as I recall that vacation time had hot weather so it was hard to do things outside like hedge trimming, which is exhausting to near-impossible in heat.  One of my challenges lately is it's hard to get things done in the evenings--I'm just so tired by the time I'm done with work and dinner that if I don't have an errand to run, my brain goes directly to relaxing.  That means working out, outside yard work, and inside cleaning have taken a backseat to rest.  Lots of tasks were overdue as a result, and while I was hoping to get a lot done with this first unscheduled weekend in ages, Jacob's request wasn't unreasonable and it felt worth doing.  However, if we were going to drive an hour to grab a meal, I wanted to make it worth our while.  

I started looking into different options in and around that area, but most of the good ones were a solid 45-60 minutes further than Geneva.  We'd already done Watkins Glen (I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but the kids not so much), and Seneca Lake didn't seem to have a lot of activities outside of the state park that surrounds it.  We could go back to Ithaca if we drove an hour southeast.  We could go to Chimney Bluffs if we drove 45 minutes north.  Auburn and Skaneateles were about an hour past, as well.  I had a friend suggest one hiking area along the way, but Jacob in particular dislikes hiking and I figured I'd give him a break this time if I could.  But nothing else was jumping out.  On the bright side, it was a lovely day--sunny and low 70s--so whatever we did wouldn't have to worry about weather.  We got a little later start than expected because I desperately wanted to get in a run and everyone slept in a bit, but we figured after a late breakfast we could stand a later lunch.  So we got on the road to start the hour drive a little after our actual lunch would have been.  Oh, and in the midst of figuring all of this out, Carter announced that he didn't actually like chicken and waffles despite eating his entire meal both previous times.  After some conversation it's possible he just didn't like leftovers he had at home, but we opted to get him mac and cheese and french fries instead.  I swear his tastebuds change weekly.  Regardless, lunch was nice and delicious as always.

Cheers!

After lunch the plan was to check out a series of four playgrounds around the lake and see if any were worth playing on.  There was one we had seen from the road a couple times that looked cool, and so we stopped there first.  It was a really neat one, with lots of different climbing stuff.  

They also had one of these crazy roller slides, which we haven't encountered much, so it was new to Carter.  He always wants to climb every single slide, and this one posed a challenge!  He did it, though!

Nothing like a playground with a view!

From the top of the slide

There was also this spinning thing, in which the boys thought was funny to spin me like crazy when I hopped in to try it out.  Ugh, my brain does not appreciate that these days, especially after a big lunch.  But the boys had fun spinning in it, even if it did slow down really quickly.

They couldn't really figure out how to climb this thing that seemed to defy gravity, but they each tried in their own ways!

And of course, Jacob just HAD to push Carter like crazy on an already-unbalanced tire swing!

Their version of brotherly love?

It turned out that the other three playgrounds were all within Seneca Lake State Park, which would have necessitated a $7 entry fee.  Since we weren't planning on staying long--maybe even just doing a drive-by--we deemed it not worthwhile (this time, anyway), and started making our way north to our destination of choice, Chimney Bluffs!  The only thing convenient about Chimney Bluffs from where we were was that it was almost directly north (and therefore no farther from home than we already were).  It was a 45 minute drive on country roads, but they were relatively interesting, at least--passing through a historical town (Waterloo), quaint canal town (Clyde), school districts we've only heard of, and apple orchards (how did I not know those trees were so short and looked vaguely like a grapevine setup?).  The good news is it would leave us not far from Route 104 which we could take directly back home in about an hour or less.

There were two parking lots for Chimney Bluffs State Park.  Oddly, the main lot was a long trail away from where we wanted to be, which I think is because the shorter trail we actually ended up at is newer.  Knowing I was dealing with limited patience and attention spans, we opted to go to the smaller satellite lot that was closest to the thing everyone comes to see: the bluffs.  They are natural structures that were formed by glaciers and erosion.  They look unlike anything else around here, and in fact felt otherworldly, or at the very least like something out west.

Jacob was giving us all sorts of grief about not wanting to hike in woods, and "what about ticks?!", so when the initial hike up was through woods (but on stairs and a reasonable cleared path), he was not thrilled.  Most of it looked something like this.  You'd walk through a wooded trail, come to an opening with a view, then walk through more of this.  It was quite peaceful aside from the sounds of the lake and the speedboats.

When we arrived at the openings that overlooked the bluffs, the views were pretty surreal, but very scenic.

Like I said, a bit otherworldly and so different from other areas along Lake Ontario.  They reminded me a bit of ruined sandcastles.

Close up view with a bonus boat in the background

Despite it being a beautiful day where we were, there was a bit of a storm brewing on the other side of the lake into Canada, which made for some dramatic, contrasting skies and lighting.

Along the path there wasn't a lot to see besides a lot of downed trees and ground cover, but I did spot this very interesting plant that I thought was a fungus but is actually a perennial plant related to the blueberry family.  It has no chlorophyll so it can grow in heavily shaded areas, and it is parasitic, meaning it takes its nutrition from the plants around it.  Fascinating!

Using my iPhone camera the majority of the time, it's hard to do good macro photography.  I can't get nearly as close to plants with my phone as I can with my camera.  But I did pull out my camera both to zoom in on the bluffs and to get shots like these of the few pops of color along the path.

Each view was so interesting and lovely in its own way.  We got to see each view twice because the trail was an out-and-back.

I should have taken a pic of the boys facing at the spot above, because this one below got shadowy, but you take what you can get when you forget until nearly the end of the trail.

This is a view of the steps you had to walk up to access the trail, and back down to the parking lot.  There were a LOT!  It twisted one more time out of view.

When we got back to the parking lot, we noticed people walking down toward the shoreline where there was a short, rocky beach.  There wasn't a good spot to go down, but I watched as people used an area where the blacktop had washed out (possibly when lake levels were higher or a storm rolled through) a bit like stairs.  I asked if I could have just five minutes or so to walk around the bend on the beach and see the bluffs from below.  As I got around to that spot, I see Carter running up alone behind me!  I guess he wanted to come too, and he chased me down.    The view from down below was cool in its own right.  You can see how tall they are.  

The rocks were sort of interesting to me.  They seemed different than what I'm used to at my preferred rocky beach (haha) at Camp Pioneer.  These all seemed to be pinkish, blue-gray, and white.
 

It wasn't the most welcoming beach--definitely better for a walk than sunbathing--but it was quite a different type of scenic landscape than we're used to along the lakes.

We headed back to the van and started our trek toward home.  Our first stop was Sodus.  There's a bay that dips down by the town and it looked like a small cottage town where people spend their summers.  We were hoping for a little more life somewhere, but all we really got to see was a historical lighthouse.  

Not much else of note, so we went back toward Route 104, stopped for 89 cent Freezes and snacks at the Speedway along the way, and took that one road pretty much the entire rest of the way home!  Always interesting to see what's on the other end of the Rochester section of 104!

I finished off the day by doing a major hedge trimming job.  Despite being tired, it was worth it to get it done when the weather was cool because that job is hard!  Between my run and the hedges, I was quite sore on Sunday!  

It was actually a pretty quick but busy week this week (hence why this is just getting published a week later).  Jacob was at UR basketball camp all week, which was nice because we didn't have to spend our days refereeing the kids.  He got a great evaluation and seemed to enjoy his week, but I think he's ready for a rest.  Carter did a great job on his school work this week, finishing three reading lessons, four math lessons, doing two pages of handwriting, and reading me a book.  As a result, he earned a Taco Bell lunch on Friday!  My work has been chugging along, but the big news of the week is that our return to the office was pushed back again, this time to late September.  It was disappointing, of course, but I guess it's less frustrating once the kids are back in school.  It does create a bit of a challenge for me since I'm inheriting a family heirloom desk that will be less conducive to my work-from-home setup (but better for everything else in the long run), but I have a couple options in mind--either taking over Carter's computer desk on the other side of the room, or moving my current desk to a spot in our basement office.  Hopefully it won't be a longer delay, but I'm losing hope based on how the COVID stats are going.  

The big thing of the week was that Craig hopped a plane for the Bay Area on Thursday for the US Box Lacrosse Championships.  The college league he helped start this summer sent one of the Rochester teams to the championship, so he had to go out with them.  It's the first time he's traveled in ages, for about twice as long as most of his roadtrips (4-1/2 days!), and of course it comes when COVID is spiking again and hitting vaccinated people on top of it.  I'm not thrilled about that, but he's getting a lot of mask time so hopefully he'll be okay.  We have a lot coming up in the next week and a half, so I'm hoping he stays healthy.  We miss him a lot and it's been an adjustment, but we're managing.

Anyway, I'm glad we were able to get in a little adventure with some much needed scenic views.  It definitely restored my soul a bit.  I'm still trying to work through a vacation in a couple weeks to further redeem this summer, but we (hopefully) have some good extended family time coming up first!