Western NY Vacation, Part 1 - Back to Cayuga!

Well, it's taken me long enough to get going on this! TQ and I got back on Tuesday from what I'm pretty sure was the longest vacation I've taken since I was in banking (FDIC policy recommends that banks require all employees to take at least 2 consecutive weeks of vacation without computer access each year). I'd left with a couple of things that I knew I would need to attend to pronto when I got back, and surprise surprise, they were still waiting for me when I got back, and surprise surprise, more things requiring attention had come in while I was away, so my 3-day work week was a bit crazy and I actually went in yesterday too. It was a yucky day out yesterday, fall seems to have finally arrived after a run of unseasonably warm weather, if it had been a nice paddling day I would've skipped the office but as it was I feel much more caught up now (although it didn't help the bad case of post-vacation blues I've got - I felt so down today that I reneged on the much-needed cleaning I'd told myself I would do today and went out for a long walk in Prospect Park instead, it was windy out but much nicer than yesterday and I came back in a much better mood). We really lucked out with the weather during our trip, especially for the part where we got up close and personal with Niagara Falls via the Cave of the Winds walkways and the Maid of the Mist, which I can't imagine would be quite as much fun if it was chilly.

This was something of a three-parter, all featuring various waters of Western NY. We started with a visit to my friend Louise, who lives near Cayuga Lake. She runs the Kayak Safety Team for the Women Swimmin' for Hospicare event that I've now gone to help out with 3 times; that event is always in the middle of the summertime, which means TQ is working weekends (he works for NYC parks and weekends are the busy days for them in the summertime), so I can never bring him along. We had come up with a very special plan for our October vacation that was going to start and finish on Cayuga, and she invited us to come stay with her for the weekend before we began that.

We had a bit of a hard time getting the heck outta Dodge on the 8th because of a running race that had a lot of streets shut down, to the point that although we left at 10:30 am, we ended up getting lunch in Park Slope, where I'd asked TQ to stop to let me pick up a hostess present at the Ladybird Bakery, but once we were clear of the race route, traffic was flowing very nicely and we got to Louise's in plenty of time to enjoy a great dinner that she had had made for us (followed by some of the hostess present, which was a LARGE Brooklyn Blackout cake - TQ's been getting these for my birthday for a few years and they are unbelievably good and I thought that would be a good and proper Brooklyn present). Sunday we did some exploring of the area, which is so pretty, visiting the shore of the lake and the beautiful Taughannock Falls State Park. The area had had a hard summer of drought, with the falls actually drying up for some time, but there'd been some rain the week before and Louise was so happy to actually show us a waterfall, even if it wasn't a very big one! After that, we went back to her place, whiled away the rest of the afternoon playing croquet (I swear I'm buying a croquet set for Sebago, it's so much fun), and then went to Maxie's Supper Club for dinner and some good live bluegrass music. It was a great day, and here's a baker's dozen of photos from the hiking part of the day: