Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Day 1.235: What? Kin's glen!

We started our day at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology - inside was a beautiful viewing area with floor-to-ceiling windows, telescopes, binoculars and bird books, a small auditorium where the girls had private showings of a couple of nature films and plenty of space for crawling and people for flirting for E5N1. There was also a pleasantly self-deprecating sign entitled "The Cornell Laboratory of WHAT?!" Outside, we walked a trail and saw deer, turtles and frogs as well as a few birds.

Afterwards, we went to Watkins Glen State Park, where we had a picnic (no parking fees now that Labor Day has passed!), and then walked down the Gorge Trail. It was like a large-scale version of yesterday's walk, but all downhill.

Highlights were this picture - yes I did take it myself!


And the Cavern Cascade - which looks spectacular from every angle.





Unfortunately, when we got to the bottom, we realised we were not at the parking-lot next to the promised play-area but another one - nearby on the map, but distant in elevation, so we had to augment our 90 minute, leisurely descent with a 30 minute rapid ascent.

This was the view down from half-way up:

I then returned to the car on my own to get the car (only 20 minutes) to find that the girls had made new friends, E5N1 was working on his tightrope-crawling technique and everyone else was well rested by the time I arrived with the car.
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2 comments:

  1. Is this the same 'Watkins Glen' which provided the venue for the famous Grateful Dead gig in the 70's? At the time, it held the Guinness World record for the largest audience at a pop festival, estimated at 600,000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Jam_at_Watkins_Glen
    Hopefully they all managed to park in the right car park!

    Nice photos btw

    A

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  2. Yes it's the same place - to be fair (to us) we got the parking part OK - it was the walking part that confused us.

    Thanks btw

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