Finger Lakes

I am happily camping out again at one of the state parks in the Finger Lakes region. Temperature-wise, this is going to be the best night of camping so far. Of the 2 nights I camped out in PA, one was the hottest night of the week, and the other was the chilliest. I can already tell tonight will be comfortable and it’s not nearly so damp out. There’s other people here, but everyone is really spread out, so once again it’s peaceful with lots of pretty night noises.

With a late night last night, I had kind of a late start this morning. Since it was the 11th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, I felt compelled to make another donation to the military. This time I picked a helicopter squadron in Afghanistan, and once again had to wait for an email response for an address. This group was requesting sweet snacks, coffee, powdered drinks and basic toiletries, so I ended up getting toothbrushes and toothpastes, deodorant, chopsticks, lemonade and orangeade mixes, coffee, more granola bars and cliff bars and I topped it off with a bunch of Halloween snack-size skittles and starbursts. Even though I had a better idea of what I was doing with the customs forms and all, it still took a while.

Tula had been patiently waiting while I shopped and was in the post office, so instead of heading right out to one of the lakes, we got in about 2 miles if walking in Auburn – a downtown area which turned into elegant museum and art galleries and then into nice homes. It was a gorgeous Sept day. Then I started the drive along the shore of Cayuga Lake – right in the middle of the Finger Lakes. The lakes are long (40 miles or so??)and kind of narrow and only a few boats were out. I imagine it’s crazy busy during the summer. I checked out a couple state parks and found the one I wanted to stay at, but first wanted to drive by the lakes some more. I found a narrow one way lane right by the shore and enjoyed a 2 1/2 mile walk. I don’t know if the homes along the lakes are mostly summer homes or year-round homes – it was very quiet. Everyone has really steep staircases leading down to the water’s edge; I even saw one chair/seat sort of thing on a pulley system going down a particularly steep area, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one testing that out! I drove along a a few more roads in the area, then headed back to the campground to register on the honor system, and then I got the other 3 1/2 miles of walking in all around the state park trails and the campground.