This week, I have the opportunity to take a 3-day solo trip to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. If you have ever been the parent of a small child, you don’t need me to tell you why this is appealing. And if you have never been the parent of a small child, you likely don’t care. So all that matters here is that for the next three days, I’m accountable to nobody but myself (and maybe the Pennsylvania State Police).
DAY 1.
And so on Tuesday morning, I awake at the unholy hour of 5AM, and having completed my metamorphosis into Solo Trip Brian*, I hit the road.
*in case you’re wondering, Solo Trip Brian is the same as Regular Brian, but with a few spicy new hobbies, like eating peanuts, driving too fast, and listening to podcasts.
Ithaca is about an eight hour drive from Richmond, and so to break it up, I make a pit stop at the Penn State Berkey Creamery. For those of you who love ice cream a bit less than I do (which is all of you), the Berkey Creamery is part of Penn State’s renowned food sciences program, and home to their ice cream short course, which teaches would-be ice cream makers the ins and outs of the science behind life’s greatest treat. It’s a whole thing.
I’m stoked upon arrival because this place is BIG. Penn State has clearly dedicated some serious resources to an on-campus ice cream shop, and I am literally here for it. I try to play it cool though, like those people who simply ask the bartender to make whatever they’re feeling. I’m only getting one chance at Berkey, so my plan is to ask what the most popular flavor is, and order that.
Me: “What’s your favorite flavor?”
Cashier: “Coconut.”
Me: “Coconut? Blegh! I’ll have mint chocolate chip.”
Nailed it.
Anyway, there is only one size, and it’s huge, and I eat the whole thing at 11:15AM because that’s what time it is. If I have another opportunity to visit, I’ll pick something with a sweet cream base so I can try to taste the difference between this fancy science ice cream and the primitive stuff I make at home. I was also hoping there would be an exhibit about ice cream science to see while there, but couldn’t find anything.
Still, 10/10 because it’s ice cream.
No longer needing lunch, I’m able to make good time and check into my hotel in Ithaca just before 4PM. This gives me plenty of daylight to check out Taughannock State Park, and it turns out that late in the day on a Tuesday is an excellent time to do just that.
Taughannock State Park (pronounced tuh-GAN-ick, which is, frankly, upsetting) encompasses the last bit of Taughannock Creek before it pours into Cayuga Lake. The highlight, of course, is Taughannock Falls, whose 215-foot drop makes it taller than Niagara Falls.
It’s an easy 0.5 mile hike along the North Rim Trail to the primary viewing point of the falls. But on the way, the trail passes another unnamed waterfall and a secondary viewing point with all of the breath-takiness and none of the people, so I end up spending more time there than I do at the Insta-famous viewing platform. I’m a little sad for everyone who drove straight to the viewing point and missed out on a quieter spot to marvel at the falls just a quarter mile away, but the feeling quickly subsides and I decide not to tell them about it.
Finally, with just one remaining hour of daylight and rainy weather in the forecast for the next two days, I decide to cram in one more stop before calling it a day. I visit Ithaca Falls just outside of town, and get a chance to fly my drone, which is prohibited in all the State Parks. I also witness a marriage proposal, and since this one had a photographer and a waterfall, you know it’s destined to last.
DAY 2.
On Day Two, I decide to use the last bit of scheduled sunny weather to visit Watkins Glen State Park. The Gorge Trail follows Glen Creek for a mile and a half through a series of gorges and waterfalls (19 in total, according to the park). It’s usually combined with one of the rim trails for a sort of above-and-below loop, but at the end of the trail I decide to make it an out-and-back, putting my camera in my backpack in order to fully enjoy the scenery on my second time through the gorge.
After a good, but not particularly memorable, doughnut…cinnamon roll…combo…thing, I have one last waterfall to see this morning. Eagle Cliff Falls is a short walk and one steep staircase from Havana Glen Park. Simply put, it’s a really cool spot if you know it’s there. And it turns out, a lot of families know it’s there!
There are more than a dozen kids at this swimming hole, and fewer than a dozen adults, which is the wrong way around for the kid:adult ratio in my experience. Plus, kids are hilariously bad at decision-making. I arrive just after one child cut his finger doing god-knows-what, so I offer to pull out my first aid kit, and hand over some antibiotic cream and a bandaid to his mom.
Ten minutes later, another child that left his brain at home runs across some wet, slippery, jagged rocks – the kind that just look like they want to harm you. And guess how that ended? Probably with stitches later today, that’s how that ended. So his mom gets both of the butterfly bandages from my first aid kit.
After wading through cold, ankle-deep water for a bit, and finding it hard to fully relax for some reason, I decide to pack it up and head back to my hotel. And reader, I kid you not, I arrive at my car just in time to see a small girl decide to scoot off the back of a seesaw, in just a way so that when her weight is no longer holding it down, it shoots upwards and uppercuts her right in the jaw.
Somehow, my first aid kit wasn’t needed a third time, but I am more apprehensive about Adrian getting older than I was 30 minutes ago.
I spend my second Ithaca evening sitting at the bar at a vegetarian restaurant called Moosewood, where I have a delicious Indian-inspired curry dish and tahini-covered broccoli, marking another thing Solo Trip Brian can do that Regular Brian cannot. Afterwards, the scooper at Cayuga Lake Creamery tells me her favorite flavor is the espresso ice cream mere moments after I order the mocha chip. No matter, the mocha chip is delicious and (come closer so I can whisper this part) I think I like it better than the ice cream at Berkey.
10/10, because it’s ice cream.
DAY 3.
Well the weather gods are smiling on me, because almost none of the scheduled rain has materialized and I now have another sunny morning with which to explore upstate NY. I hop in the car for a short drive to Treman State Park, Enfield Creek, and a 4.5-mile hike with 900 feet of elevation change. This represents the most challenging hike I’ve done since my latest hip surgery, and the trail starts off like it was designed by someone aiming for maximum regret among its users. According to my All Trails app, I gain 166 ft of elevation in the first 0.2 miles. I’m no math expert, but with the benefit of hindsight and Google, I am able to calculate a nearly 16% grade right off the bat. So much for easing in.
Despite getting a later start this morning than intended, I see more chipmunks than people for the first hour. The trail bobs up and down, getting close enough to the river to hear it, but not so close that I can agree with calling it the Gorge Trail. Until the second mile, that is.
Finally, trail meets river and the going becomes more exciting than difficult. Back to back gorges, each with its own high walls and an impressive waterfall, are an appropriate payoff given the effort to get here, and I’m very glad to have made the trek. The photos below don’t do them justice, and my words certainly don’t either, so you’ll just have to trust me that my eyeballs are having a good time.
From the falls, I take the Rim Trail back, which follows the other bank of the same river. Along the way, I pass a couple who say, “I’m pretty sure we saw you yesterday, were you at Watkins Glen?” Why yes, I was there yesterday, and now The Guy Who Was At Watkins Glen That One Time officially has an origin story.
I wonder if they remember me because I seem particularly cool, or whether it’s because I look like I should be avoided at all costs. While the fact that they spoke to me at all makes the case for the former, their reaction to my brewery meetup invitation…does not. I guess I’ll have to find other people who remember me from Watkins Glen, then.
Finally, the trail ends near a beautiful swimming area, which is fed by a waterfall of course, because the region has so many they’re practically giving them away. I don’t really want to get in the very cold water, but I also don’t want to NOT get in the very cold water, if that makes sense. And so Solo Trip Brian YOLOs into some very cold water, where he is promptly met by a strange combination of regret and happiness.
In the afternoon, I do a little souvenir shopping and meet a 60-something woman who admits to knowing nothing about coffee, which doesn’t stop her from spending several minutes giving me her opinions on a variety of bags of local beans. I choose two that she doesn’t mention, and quickly move on to the Cayuga Creamery for a second time this week. Cookie Dough, 10/10 because it’s ice cream.
While on my morning hike, I convinced myself that driving 35 minutes to Cortland to see the place where my parents met would be poignant and inspiring. It turns out to be neither of those things, both because the bar has been closed for nearly 30 years, and because its replacement is pretty much what you’d expect of a rural college town bar at 4PM on a Wednesday afternoon during summer break – completely empty minus two regulars, who immediately look up from their beer to stare when I walk in.
It is still a fun and worthwhile side trip – I FaceTime with my parents while in front of my Dad’s frat house, and then take them on a walk to see the aforementioned bar and its neighbor, the Dark Horse Tavern, before taking a short drive through SUNY Cortland’s campus. I have no regrets here.
For my last evening in Ithaca, I attend a meet up of random strangers from the internet – that I organized! That’s right, I decided yesterday to see if there are any interesting locals willing to be chatted up by yours truly, and very much to my surprise, three of them did. A 40-something dad of two teenagers and an early 20s couple with nothing better to do on a Thursday night found themselves so charmed by my internet wit, that they make their way to Liquid State Brewing. Conversation flows surprisingly well for a group in such different stages of life, and we all have a good time. Maybe I’ll try it again on my next solo trip?
And that’s that! The next day was a pretty uneventful eight-hour drive home with one fewer speeding ticket than on the way up. The whole trip can be summarized as three nights, three state parks, three ice creams, three drone flights, at least twenty-four waterfalls, and enough free time to write one long blog post. 10/10.
