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Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today we drove over to Skaneateles Lake, a finger lake east of Ithaca, to check out the Finger Lake Lavender Festival. This area of New York is beauty…rolling hills, green pastures, beautiful tall trees, red barns and amazing views. The festival was at Lockwood Lavender Farm, which overlooks the lake. The farm is open daily in June and July for people to pick lavender bouquets, wander through their beautiful grounds taking pictures and shop for lavender products in the drying barn. But this weekend they also offered an arts and craft show, music and food. It was a great experience, but photo ops would have been better when the crowd was smaller. 
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Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” —Frank Lloyd Wright

We made it to Buttermilk Falls today. The state park is literally in Ithaca. The original 164 acres of the park were presented as a gift to New York State by Robert and Laura Treman in 1924. It grew to its current 811-acre through various state acquisitions in the years that followed. We hiked the gorge trail which follows Buttermilk Creek as it cascades down through the gorge about 600 feet, passing deep pools, sculpted rocks and countless waterfalls. First we hiked up…then we hiked back down the same trail.
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We woke to another beautiful day and even though we have work we could do around the boat we decided to enjoy the day exploring a new area around Ithaca. We packed a picnic lunch, loaded the car with fishing gear and headed southeast of town to the Owego River.
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July 4th celebrations started on Saturday and ran for four days. For the most part the weather was amazing…with a little rain tossed in to make things fun.

There were so many options on Saturday…we settled on a vineyard on the western shore of the lake. Americana Vineyard was celebrating with bands, food trucks, BBQ, beer and wine all day long with a firework show at 10:00. We headed over to the festivities around lunch…figured it wouldn’t be too crowded if we went early. We got a nice place under one of the tents, an especially nice place to be since the weather was still a little threatening. We had a great time listening to the music, dancing, tasting their beer and wine, and visiting with the people around us.
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Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

We stumbled across this little preserve by chance this week while we were looking for a good place to fly fish. It’s a beautiful spot to spend a little time relaxing…taking in the sights and sounds of nature. 

Salt Point was named because the International Salt Company produced table and other salt products on this site from 1891 through 1962. The company was the heart and soul of the small community. Syrian workers built houses and the company erected the tiny St. George Syrian Orthodox Church, which still holds services today. Erie Canal boats would come down the lake to pick up salt for distribution. 
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Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” ― Oscar Wilde

We finally made it to a winery…Six Mile Creek Vineyards seemed like a good winery to start with since it’s only a few miles from Ithaca and shares the name of the creek we live close to in Texas. Six Miles Creek Vineyard began with the first plantings of grapes in 1982.   

The winery opened its doors to the public in 1987 in a rebuilt Dutch Colonial Barn. The first year they produced 250 gallons of wine, today they produce over 10,000 gallons. What started as a hobby quickly grew into a highly respected winery in the Finger Lakes and soon became know as “Ithaca’s Own Winery.”
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Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“Fly fishing is not about catching the fish. It is about enjoying the water, the breeze, the fish swimming all around. If you catch one, good. If you don’t…that’s even better. That means you come out and get to try all over again.” ―Clare Vanderpool, Navigating Early

We spent the day exploring around Lansing, which is ten miles north of Ithaca on the east side of Cayuga Lake. Our first stop was Myers Park to check out the Myers Point Light. This lighthouse is probably the newest lighthouse we’ve ever seen…it was built in 1998. The park is a beautiful town park right on the lake. Our next stop was at Salt Point, across Salmon Creek from Myers Park. We actually stumbled onto this great little natural treasure simple by accident and I’ll save pictures and info on this area for another post. 

Our actual destination for the day was Ludlowville Falls and Salmon Creek. The creek is a popular fishing destination because it typically has a good run of rainbow trout (mostly in the spring) and we’ve been told it’s a great place to fish for salmon in the fall. It made a wonderful place to have a picnic lunch and spend the afternoon…relaxing and taking pictures for me and fly fishing for Stan.
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Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” —Paulo Coelho

We had some special visitors on The Pearl this past week. Kyle came up from Pennsylvania on Friday with Graham and Cora. It was fun having them onboard. We spent Friday afternoon at the Ithaca Sciencenter since the weather was a little threatening. It was a fun place that Graham truly enjoyed. 
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