Life in the Slow Lane (The Pearl): Aug. 19

Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot…” –Aldo Leopold

Saturday we drove over to Seneca Lake to check out the Windmill Market. Friends have been telling us about it, so we thought we’d check it out. The Windmill Farm & Craft Market is one of the largest markets in upstate New York and is celebrating its 30th anniversary. There are over 175 vendors selling just about everything you can think of…from fresh produce, baked goods, cheese, wine, jewelry, home décor, collectibles, handcrafted items, clothing and food booths serving all kinds of treats. It was a fun place to spend a morning.

This area of upstate New York has a large Amish community and a lot of Amish farms sell produce and cheese items at this market. There's even a special parking area just for their buggies .

This was the best bakery booth at the market...wonderful things at unbelievable prices.

Not everything in Texas is bigger...these veggies are huge. I know it's hard to tell from these pictures, but these items are much larger than the normal veggies. The cauliflower and melons were as big as soccer balls. The little red pepper in the upper left is normal size...so just imagine how large the green peppers are. I sure wish this market was closer to Ithaca...I would shop here every week.

This tomato is larger than the meat and the bun...and so good!

While we were in the area we drove down to the town of Montour Falls to check out the short hike and waterfalls at Havana Glen Park. Eagle Cliff Falls is located within the quaint city park of Havana Glen, it's the product of McClure Creek cascading 40’ over the shale cliffs of the deep gorge, the wide plume, nearly 20 feet across, plunges through a notch in the rock wall into an emerald pool, before continuing along its multi-tiered course over a series of ledges.

The beginning of the Havana Glen hike

Our first look at the Eagle Cliff Falls

The hike is only .3 miles along the banks of McClure Creek surrounded by the steep-sided walls of the limestone cliffs; there's a series of staircases that take you to a small trail and through the creek into a rock amphitheater where Eagle Cliff Falls is center stage. You can cross the creek to the base of the falls where you can wade directly under the falling water. It's a beautiful area and the falls were very nice even though there isn’t a lot of water this time of year. The only drawback is the crowd of people in the park and on the trail…we enjoy more remote spots, but we're glad we took the time to see this waterfall.

This is the end of the trail across from the falls