themartianchick Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 One of the things that I really do enjoy about our location is the close proximity to lots of college campuses. Today, hubby and I took a road trip to Cornell University in Ithaca New York. The university is especially well-known for having an excellent agricultural curriculum featuring some of the best minds in the field. We spent a leisurely day visiting their ornithology lab and walking the nature trails in Sapsucker Woods. We had a blast watching the birds and I took a lot of (bad) bird photos. I did get some great ones of water lilies, though. Next, we visited the Cornell Plantations. They have so many types of gardens that there was no way that we'd be able to tour them all in one day. I got some great shots of some of the plants to use in my writing and also gained some great ideas as to how I'd like to garden smarter next year. I didn't expect hubby to enjoy it so much, but he really did! There was no way to see all of the gardens, but we've already made plans to make another trip in a few weeks. This time, I plan to photograph the garden of poisonous plants. I think that it will be kind of cool to be able to identify other toxic plants. Of the few that I know by sight, only one actually grows in my yard. Ithaca is an old hippie haven, so it is very family friendly and folks garden and try to live a somewhat green lifestyle. Ithaca is gorges! No, that isn't a misspelling... It is their slogan. The city is nestled in an area that has lots and lots of gorges, streams and waterfalls. They even have one in the middle of the city. We also drove to a town about 10 miles away to view another one that we'd never seen before. We finished the day at Purity Ice Cream, a local favorite. I tried cinnamon ice cream for the first time. We hadn't been to Ithaca in quite a while so it was quite a treat. It was so hard to leave to come back home. Link to comment
Daylily Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 That sounds like a wonderful trip that my whole family would enjoy! Link to comment
Ambergris Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 Sounds like a perfect day trip for you. Link to comment
Amishway Homesteaders Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 Hey - That brought back some memories! I took some classes there and even taught a few 4H classes way back when. LOL So much fun running from building to building in the snow 'tring' to be on time for classes! ***LOVE that town and YES if you go you MUST see the Falls!*** Did you like driving up and down all the hilly roads? LOL by the way................... How did you even find Sapsucker Woods? It is out in the middle of nowhere! WHat a great place to hike! so much to see - - and 'hear' Our best memory is going in the winter when the big pond was froozen. The geese an dducks would 'fly' in and try an dland on the water - only to go skidding along on feet with wings flapping all around trying to stop! LOL Link to comment
themartianchick Posted July 11, 2011 Author Share Posted July 11, 2011 About 10 years ago, I took some summer classes at Cornell. I stayed in the almost deserted dorms. While I felt that the classes were impersonal in those big lecture halls, even though they were mostly empty, I did find that the folks who taught and took the classes were some of the nicest I'd ever met. I got to see Ithaca Falls that year...right in the middle of the city. Unfortunately, I was without a vehicle and did not feel comfortable exploring anything except the campus and the fabulous Wegmans store that they have with the cooking school upstairs! Fast forward a few years and my daughters attended a summer music camp at Ithaca College. Since the kids performed a few times during their 2 week stay, we wore grooves in the highway. We had to get them to camp...drive home...drive back for a concert...drive home without them... and so forth. We gained a pretty good understanding of certain areas of Ithaca. The following 2 years, my youngest daughter became a camp counselor there. It was more of the same..driving back and forth...except she couldn't leave when the campers did, so we usually had about 3 hours with nothing to do, so we began to explore. On one of our expeditions, we went to Buttermilk Falls and hiked to the top. During all of those trips to music camp, we frequently saw the sign for Sapsucker Woods on our way into town, but never turned to learn more about it. I really just learned what it was on Saturday morning when I was trying to get addresses for all of the gardens and falls that we wanted to visit. I learned about the walking trails and that one of the was for the ornithology lab and Sapsucker Woods. I didn't see an address in the website but knew exactly where that sign was! While the gardens were up my alley, I wanted to make sure that we did plenty of things that hubby would enjoy. There are definitely a lot of hills in Ithaca, but I'm used to them. My sister attended Alfred University back in the day and I remember feeling as though we were all going to turn into mountain goats as a result of walking so many hills on the campus. Cornell and Ithaca College campuses are very similar to the one at Alfred University. I probably wouldn't plan a trip to Cornell in the winter...those hills would be treacherous! If I lived there, I'd probably never leave the house in winter...Hmmm...can humans hibernate? Link to comment
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