Life in the Slow Lane (The Pearl)

Weekend Updates

Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“You can't come back if you never go away.” —Unknown

Getting around to blogging gets difficult when you stay busy and on the go. We enjoyed Friday in Ithaca getting to know our dock mates and taking in a little of the annual Ithaca Festival...arts and crafts, food, music and a parade. Ithaca is a really eclectic town, so people watching is definitely a fun activity. People watching at the evening parade was more fun than the parade itself, but we gave up before the parade ended so we could have a nice dinner at Maxie's. Everyone we've met in town has recommended it and it didn't disappoint. It's definitely a place we'll go back to.

Booths at the Ithaca Festival

Dock mates at an evening get together...hopefully I'll have a better picture next time.

Ithaca Festival evening parade

Salmon over spinach and asparagus polenta

Clam poor boy

On Saturday we drove down to Pennsylvania to celebrate our daughter in law and grandson's birthdays. What a celebration...taco night complete with a fire pit for roasting marshmallows on Saturday to celebrate with Bryt and a cute Bob the Builder party on Sunday to celebrate Graham's 3rd birthday…lots of food and fellowship...what a great weekend.

Now we are back in Texas for a week visiting family and checking on things here. More blog updates when we return to The Pearl.

Saturday night fun around the fire pit

Fun with our grand daughter Cora

The happy birthday boy.

Snow in June

Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

If you look across our marina, you might think it's snowing...snow in June? The June snow is white and fluffy, but warm and cottony rather than cold and crystalline. The snows of June consist of “cotton” from the cottonwood trees: small bits of cotton-like fibers enclosing a small green cottonwood seed. It's the tree's distribution agent, allowing the seeds to be dispersed as they are blown in the wind.

Sometimes, especially near a stand of cottonwoods, there can be a flurry of cotton that resembles a light snow storm. But to this Texas girl the piles of fluff along the edges of the grass remind me of cotton. Like the bits of cotton that blow out of the cotton pickers and module builders in August and pile up along the road.

The cotton blizzard typically lasts only a few weeks, and all is gone by July. They can be a nuisance sometimes clogging up waterways, filters, collecting inches deep in gutters, and turning into clumps of fibrous mass in the rain. These piles can sometimes be difficult to clear away.

These trees are Eastern Cottonwood, also called Eastern Poplar. Cottonwoods are some of the oldest known trees in existence. They are in the Willow family and like willows are fast growers. Their wood is generally weak and they are rather short lived as trees go, living usually only about eighty years or so. But due to their rapid growth they can provide quick shade in parks and recreational areas.

June 1 – Fall Creek Gorge Hike

Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” – Pema Chödrön

Ithaca promotes itself as having 150 waterfalls within ten miles of town...we've seen 13 so far. So blog followers, you might get tired of seeing waterfalls this summer, but I hope not. Today we rode our bikes up to Ithaca Falls and the Fall Creek Gorge. In the early 1800’s, half-dozen mills were operating near Ithaca Falls and you can see their ruins along the south bank of the creek. The plunge pool of Ithaca Falls is famous among anglers for lake-run trout and salmon.

Ithaca Falls

The path up to Ithaca Falls

Looking up Fall Creek to Ithaca Falls from the Stewart Ave. Bridge

Fall Creek flows through the northern part of Cornell University and into Cayuga Lake. Between Beebe Lake in the east and Ithaca Falls in the west the creek flows through a deep rocky gorge with four other dramatic falls. Ithaca Falls is the largest with a drop of 150', it's the most powerful and impressive waterfall in the region. Fall Creek and its associated gorge are an integral part of the Cornell University Campus and the surrounding communities. The gorge provides scenic views, recreation, trails, plant and wildlife habitat, hydroelectric power and a source of drinking water for Cornell University and the hamlet of Forest Home.

Getting to Ithaca Falls wasn't too difficult, but to see and hike the rest of the gorge we had to go uphill...WAY uphill, past Gun Hill where the Ithaca Gun Company use to produce world famous shotguns. A little further up the hill from there we found the trail head that leads along the gorge, through part of the Cornell campus and to Beebe Lake. From Beebe Lake we walked through the campus and back to our bikes and then road back downtown...hiking and biking we did almost nine miles today. We rewarded our morning efforts with a hamburger at the Ithaca Ale House for lunch.

This was the beginning of our up hill climb, it went on for about a mile...straight up. I don't think the picture gives the full effect of how far up we really had to go. It was much steeper than it looks. but riding our bikes back down to lunch was a lot more fun than going up.

Looking up to Foaming Falls and Rocky Falls

The view from the top of Forrest Falls...you can see the breakwater into the marina in the top center of this picture. What a great view from up here.