Good wine, great trip

Every fall, we go to the Finger Lakes for a short vacation.  We like the wines of that region far more than California wines.  We know about many of the vineyards, having visited them and in many cases, bought and  drank their wines.  Every year we drop some whole quality is not what we want and try a new vineyard or two.  We start on the upper west bank of Seneca Lake for Fox Run on the way to the town of Penn Yan at the head of Keuka Lake. We stay at the Hampton at the head of the east branch of Keuka Lake.  We always get a room that faces the lake.  Nothing outside the big window exept the lake and the sunset and sunrise and stars. 

The next morning, we go to Konstantin Frank.  I’ve been drinking his wine since the early60’s when I coud find it.  We always buy a couple of cases there.  Then we move onto more Keuka wineries, have lunch in Dundee and return to the middle portion of Seneca Lake’s west shore, always making sure to stop at Weiner’s.  Then we go on around the bottle of the lake and head for Cayuga where our principal stop is Thirsty Owl.  Then we go into Ithaca to eat and spend the night. 

The next morning we get up early and head to the Cornell apple store.  They have the bst apples we’ve found anyplace and many varieties. We also bought some local honey. Then we head home.

The cats were rapturous to see us.  Four cats all got into bed during the night to make sure we were really there.  A friend, Janet, fed them while we were gone. This morning, Schwartzie could not wait for us to get up but hurled himself against the door, thump, thump, thump. He couldn’t wait to climb onto Woody. We unpacked last night.

Now I’m home to 232 emails and probably a ton of mail whenWoody gets to the P.O.  I have much to do this weekend.  The trouble with even a short vacation [3 days] is how much we each have to do when we get back.  I still have a fuchsia plant to pot to save it from the winter and Mingus must have his eye medicine, and we have to put the wine away and the apples.  That we were too tired to deal with last night. There was a lot of traffic on the way back and two separate crashes held traffic up for some time, so it took us longer than it usually does to return home from Ithaca.

My ankle was very sore toward the end of the trip, but we did everything we intended.  I wish I could still hike as there are many wonderful trails there.  We did take time to sit and admire Cayuga lake at a park where you can get right up to the water.  Beautiful views as in so many spots there.  The scenery is do different from our beloved Cape – rocky cliffs, many waterfalls, large freshwater lakes, stillvibrant fall colors.  Steep winding roads through deep woods. 

I am looking forward to our poetry group’s meeting onWednesday evening here.  I have some new poems I’d like feedback on and it will be great to see the other poets and hear  and read their new poems.  One of our members was in a bad accident when another rear ended her and  has been out with the endless problems that caused – pain and immobility.  I miss her – she’s an excellent poet.

The cats are still unwilling to let us out of their sight as we might suddenly disappear.  My cole crops were badly eaten while we were gone. It doesn’t seem to be cabbage butterfly caterpillars.  Maybe slugs.  Or flea beetles.  Can’t tell yet. The garden calls!