Museum of the Earth, Ithaca

The Museum of the Earth, located in north-west Ithaca along the west side of Lake Cayuga is magnificent and well worth a visit.  We spent about 3 hours there and wished we had more time.  The complete skeleton of a Right Whale greets you in the lobby and you end your tour in front of the Hyde Park Mastadon, a mostly complete Mastadon skeleton discovered in a Hyde Park resident's backyard pond.  The permanent exhibit consists of fossils and displays illustrating the various eons, eras and periods of time since the beginning of life, roughly 2.5 billion years ago, to the present.

New York State is rich in fossils from the Paleozoic Era, roughly 540 to 250 million years ago, and they are readily found in places such as river channels and gorges and man-made road and rail cuts.  Denise, as a child, used to find fossils, primarily Devonian Trilobites, along a creek near her home.

Taughannock Falls State Park

Taughannock Falls State Park is located about 5 miles north of Ithaca along the west side of Cayuga Lake near Trumansburg.   The lower and more spectacular fall, can be reached at the end of the 3/4 mile "gorge" trail, an easy and level walk.  There is an upper fall that can be seen if one takes one of the rim trails. We chose to walk in on the gorge trail rather than one of the rim trails due to time constraints.   The views from the gorge and the gorge itself were spectacular.  According to the brochure we picked up at the park office, the lower fall is 215 feet high and the gorge walls are about 400 feet.

Buttermilk Falls State Park

Buttermilk Falls State Park is another interesting gorge hike, though somewhat different than Taughannock Falls, since the trail climbs rapidly alongside a series of small falls and cascades.  The park gets its name from the large cascade near the parking lot, the largest of the falls along the Gorge Trail.  Like Taughannock Creek, Buttermilk Creek also flows into Lake Cayuga, but through the City of Ithaca at the south end of Lake Cayuga.  We hiked the gorge trail to the bridge where one can cross to the other side of the creek and returned, perhaps a half mile each way.

Binghamton

We visited Denise's mother, Annie, in her home where Denise grew up.  With Annie we visited the Corning Musuem of Glass in Corning, where I unfortunately took no photos though I include a couple below taken from the museum website.  Another day we drove to Howe Caverns and took the cavern tour with Annie and Denise's little brother Patrick.  We also visited with a couple of Denise's childhood friends and their families, her cousin Judy, did a bit of wine tasting in the Finger Lakes region, and we explored some of the places Denise used to hang out in when she was a child.

Corning Museum of Glass

The Corning Museum of Glass, located in Corning about 80 miles west of Binghamton, is another gem of a museum and is easily worth a whole day's visit.  Their collection of antique glass objects and art from ancient times to present is alone worth the visit.  They also have excellent exhibits and demonstrations of glass technology and history.  All the photos above are from the Corning Museum of Glass website because I (stupidly) didn't bring my camera.

Howe Caverns Adventure Park

Howe Caverns Adventure Park I described at the top of the page as wretched and commercialized.  I think "wretched" might be a bit harsh.  Perhaps embarrasingly bad is closer to the truth.  The "attraction" now includes a ZIP line, a rock climbing wall, a "ropes course", OGO Balls (whatever they are), and other non-caverns stuff.  If you've ever been to Carlsbad Caverns or any of the other great caverns of the national parks, you'll understand.  Howe Caverns is relatively small and has been badly treated since its discovery.  Many of the larger natural features have been moved.  A concrete and brick path now covers most of the original cavern floor.  Concrete shores up the walls in places and attempts to hide power lines run through the caverns.  A heart shaped light is embedded in the floor in one spot so lovers may step onto it to be guaranteed they will marry within a year (or something to that effect).  Etc. etc. etc.  If you have not visited a cavern before, you might find it interesting, otherwise you'll dispair over what the many owners have done to the place.

I once again forgot to bring my camera so I had to use my cell phone camera for the interior shots with the expected poor results.  I did take a couple of exterior shots with my DSLR and I borrowed a couple of pictures from the Howe Caverns website.

Howe Caverns Adventure Park is located about 30 miles west of Schenectady and about 100 miles east of Binghamton.

Niagara Falls

From Binghamton we drove to Niagara Falls (US side) and stayed at the Comfort Inn The Point.  This motel is literally across the street from the Niagara Falls State Park and is walking distance from viewpoints of the falls on both the American and Canadian sides.  We were joined by Denise's cousin Judy and her husband Tom, and Sue, Judi's college roommate, long time friend, and local resident who played tour guide for our two day visit.

Above I described the falls as "gaudy, commercialized, but magnificent".  That is accurate.   On both sides casinos dominate the skyline, especially on the Canadian side, the American side clearly looking depressed and unrecovered from the recent recession.  But the falls are magnificent and overwhelming in their power despite significant amounts of water being diverted for power plants on both sides of the boundry.

In addition to the falls, we investigated the Niagara River gorge downstream (pictures below).

Niagara Whirlpool

The Niagara Whirlpool is believed to have resulted from the errosion of an intersecting gorge that can just be seen in the first photo on the opposite (Canadian) shore about a third of the way from the right.  Continual errosion has formed a rounded basin in which the water swirls counterclockwise except at times of low water flow when it reverses direction.  The Niagara Whirlpool and the rapids above it can clearly be seen in the NASA image of the Niagara River above.

Robert Moses Niagara Hydroelectric Power Plant

The Robert Moses Niagara Hydroelectric Power Plant was constructed between 1957 and 1961.  It sits roughly opposite its Canadian counterpart, the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations (actually two plants completed in 1922 and 1954).  Both power stations use water diverted above Niagara Falls through canals into holding basins.  The holding basins can clearly be seen in the NASA image above.

Old Fort Niagara

Fort Niagara was built on the eastern shore of the Niagara River where it meets Lake Ontario.   The first structure, a simple wooden stockade, was built by the French in 1678.  The fort came under the control of the English in 1759 during the French and Indian War, and later it became American as part of the terms of the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution in 1783.  Control of the mouth of the Niagara River was important since it controlled the portages around Niagara Falls, and thus played an important role in the fortunes of the French, English and Americans in their wars for control of the Great Lakes.