Friends, Falls and Finger Lakes

Friends from Salt Cay, Ed & Cathy, joined us last weekend exploring the Finger Lakes "neighborhood". Armed with my GPS (her name is Serrabella) we piled into Dot (my car) and took off to find Taughannock Falls. The drive from Penn Yan was perfect... the day was one of those rare sunny days with a slight breeze blowing as the sunlight turned the colors of everything brilliantly beautiful. Ed & Cathy (that's their picture on the left) really loved the change of scenery from the flat lands of Ontario, Canada.

Taughannock Falls is 215 feet high, the tallest free-falling waterfall in the northeast United States. "Taughannock" means "in the trees" in the Algonquin language. It may have been the name of an Indian warrior who staged a raid here on the Cayuga people during the Colonial period. - from the sign at the entrance to the Falls.

This area has some great trails to hike, but with my ankle newly out of the boot/brace thing, it just didn't work out. It's impossible to get too close to the falls, but one of the trails circles around the back of the mountain and down to the base of the hill we stood on to see the falls. Another trail follows the river down to the end where it emplies into Cayuga Lake. Ed & Cathy visit every year and go to the Genneseo Air Show with Mike - next year we'll put on our hiking boots and explore a little better!

After Mike and Ed took a look at the map, we headed North toward Trumansburg for some lunch. A sleepy town on a Sunday but we found an interesting little restaurant for lunch before heading home to Penn Yan.