In which we squeeze all the juice out of Ithaca ...
Our first priority in Ithaca was to visit their famous Famer's Mkt - and we were not disappointed! The market has a permanent covered pavilion and features more than 100 stalls - fruits, vegetables, prepared foods (we had wonderful breakfast burritos), wines and apple ciders, meats and many other food items. This is the first mkt I have been to where there is an 'origin' rule - only items from 30 miles or closer are allowed. I love that!
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| Ithaca’s Farmers Market |
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| Farmers Market Pavilion |
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| Who knew there were so many types of garlic? |
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| Melanie’s Cousin Lynn Leopold |
On Saturday afternoon Cousin Lynn took us on a tour. We had only a vague notion of this area, and we certainly had no idea how beautiful it is. This area and the Finger Lakes where formed by repeated glaciation cycles of the past 100,000 plus years. The last glaciers melted away about 10,000 years ago and as they retreated they left large long valleys that filled with melt water creating these beautiful, deep, long lakes. Subsequently erosion created numerous gorges riddled with waterfalls all through Ithaca and the surrounding area. The underlying shale erodes in a very unique pattern creating deep, narrow valleys - the many hiking trails allow an up-close appreciation.
We had seen this sign all around town. Now we understand!
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The CCC build many bridges and trails in the 1930’s and 40’s
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| Swimming Area with a waterfall! What fun on a hot summer day. |
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| Look close and you can see the back side of water |
On Sunday we rode our bikes to the center of town and Ithaca Commons, which is an outdoor shopping and entertainment area. We did some exploring, and our part to support the local economy.
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| On the commons - a local with his not-very-talkative girlfriend. |
For lunch we had a reservation at Moosewood. I grew up with the Moosewood Cookbook and was really excited to found out it originated in Ithaca. In 1974 the Moosewood Collective was a small group who opened a vegetarian restaurant and published the now famous cookbook. It was really the first vegetarian cookbook to be popular - in fact the James Beard Foundation has listed it as one of the ten best selling cookbooks of all time! They have published many wonderful vegetarian since then, and the restaurant is thriving. We had a wonderful lunch of spicy Asian noodles and squash carbonara pasta. Very enjoyable and when we got the check we were surprised at how inexpensive it was. I guess that with no meat the dishes are cheaper to produce! What a treat.
Of course lunch needed to be followed up with something sweet so we headed to the local ice cream shop, Purity Ice Cream. Lynn introduced us to Purity and we were dazzled by the Chocolate Black Raspberry Truffle. Rick, who, as a Rohrbach, has done his fair share of ice cream consumption, said “that is probably the best ice cream I’ve ever had”. High praise indeed!
We were having such a nice time on our visit that we decided to stay for two more days. The weather was perfect - cool and sunny during the day, with a blanket or two required at night.
On Sunday evening we went to Lynn’s house to cook dinner. She gave us a tour of her 9 acres of heaven with a small home nestled on the hillside above the lake. We had a lovely evening talking about the extended Bradley family, with Lynn and I looking over old pictures, and revisiting events and people from our shared history.
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| The view from Cousin Lynn’s house! |
One day we visited South Hill Elementary, where my mom did her student teaching in Ithaca after graduate school at
Cornell from 1954-57 as a Ford Foundation Scholar. It was fun to see her
old stomping grounds, but we did not anticipate what a HILL South Hill would be, and we almost had a heart attack trying to get up it with our bikes...
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Stupid Hill - actually there were 3-4 streets of this nature. Grump grump.
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The next day we walked all around Cornell. We had learned our lesson about hills, so we rode our bikes to the base of the Cornell hill and took a bus up to the university. It's a lovely campus.
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The famous clock tower. And the requisite ivy-covered walls. It's a Ivy school, but also a ag-school - so they claim to have a different sort of vibe, since the grow the ivy!
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It's almost literally an ivy-tower, as it sits up above the common folk.
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Since I collect libraries, the first stop was the A.D. White library, also called the Harry Potter Library. I'm still heartbroken that the Peabody Library in Baltimore was closed, and I was so worried I wouldn't get to see this one - but we waltzed right in!
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This was originally a personal library, and it feels that way - very cozy and intimate. There are even a couple of arm chairs in front of the fireplace! Seats are by reservation only, and very few students can fit.
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We have been on several college campuses during this boat sojourn, but there were never any students. Cornell was in full swing, with lots of activities and students, and it
was strange, but heartening, to see. Our next stop was the I.M.Pei-designed Cornell Johnson museum as I was interested in a current exhibition - Women Making Their Mark. Interesting as that was, the real treat was the 360 degree views of Ithaca from the 5th floor!
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| You can almost see our boat! |
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For our final stop we walked the top of the gorge on the north side of campus, and then hiked the south Cascadilla gorge back down to our bikes. All bridges now have metal mesh surrounding them in an effort to keep students from suicide. That breaks your heart, doesn't it ...
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It would be remiss not to mention the Cornell and Ithaca College rowing teams, who were on the river by us early every morning and late every night practicing. They work so much hard on their boats then we do on ours...
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A final visual treat from Ithaca!
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