Sat. July 9, Ithaca, Finger Lakes

 Saturday, July 9, 2016

We sleep in this morning and it is 68 degrees and overcast when we finally head out at 8:45.   But we don’t go far – just to the beach at the other side of the park. 

We walk for a while and enjoy watching this duck and her ducklings out for a morning swim and breakfast.

  A few people are beginning to arrive to stake out their picnic tables for the day.  It seems that the rain has passed –or at least there are quite a few optimists!   We have some breakfast and then begin the drive further north, toward Ithaca NY.

More woods, farms and small towns.  We stop at a Firehouse Sub Shop near Ithaca, and then head to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 

They have several birding trails, so we stretch our legs a bit on the Wilson trail around Sapsucker Pond.  Lots of red-winged black birds, finches, robins, geese and ducks – plus a few birds we don’t recognize.

Inside the lab, we watch a few videos and play a bit in their sound lab, which shows visualization of various animal sounds.

Later we stop by the Ithaca Farmers’ Market.

 Quite a collection of folks selling everything from Asian noodles to zucchini, plants, flowers, jewelry and more. But it is late afternoon and they are winding down.

Tonight we are looking for a campground in Finger Lakes National Forest, which is about an hour away on some small roads, the last one being gravel.  Blueberry Patch campground is small and primitive but sites are spacious and you can hardly see your neighbor.  We are the third or fourth campers to arrive, but by evening all nine sites are taken. We are very near Seneca Lake.

Greg gathers and splits firewood while Beth does some writing.  The temperature drops to the high 50’s – wonderful!!  Greg makes burgers on the grill and we enjoy the campfire.