Day Three

Day Three

We got up fairly late again, this time perhaps more due to the Little Venice nightlife than the hard week at work.  Took a shower and headed downstairs to face the inevitable.  It was like groundhogs day—same couples, F***ing Mitch in yet another Jimmy Buffett shirt and socks, and piles of baked glop on the table.  The main course was a sickeningly sweet, enormous wad of dough and sugar with the required drizzle of unnaturally colored sauce on top.  Drizzle must be de rigeur for B&B breakfasts.  It is decorative and looks sophisticated.  I choked down as much as I could while the other couples chatted about their respective tourist trails (wine, chocolate, art, etc.) and the hijinks that had ensued out by the firepit the prior evening.  Ann and I smiled politely and once again left as soon as it was polite to do so.

Ann came up with a great out-of-the-box idea which would solve many of our negative feelings about the B&B.  She said why not just have a B.  As in Bed.  No second B.  No staring at strangers at breakfast.  No need to interact with the weird innkeeper.  Just give me my key and point me to the B.  It's a win-win—Mitch's wife doesn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to make the gooey mess, Mitch has more time to ponder which Jimmy Buffett shirt to sport that day, and the guests get a free pass and can go to the coffee shop down the street for a muffin and a cup of joe.  The woman is brilliant.

Today's adventure was to be Watkins Glen, home of the famous raceway.  Our goal, however, was not the raceway but the famous Watkins Glen gorge where there was reportedly a spectacular several mile hike in a state park.  When we got to the park it was clear that this was a popular hike—there was a line of cars going into the parking lot. 

Our fellow hikers represented a broad cross section of the American public—by which I mean they had spent most of the last decade on the couch eating donuts and watching Oprah.  Although this was a popular tourist attraction, it was still a pretty long hike and I had a bad feeling about some of the other tourists and their ability walk that far.  This concern was reinforced by their footwear, which ranged from rubber sandals to Gucci loafers.  Turns out there was a shuttle bus that took most of them to the top of the gorge so that they could walk down and use gravity to their advantage.

However, we knew something they didn't—walking down a slippery gorge is a lot harder than walking up, as we had discovered at Buttermilk Falls.  Anyway, we gave up on being our brother’s keeper and walked up the gorge trail.  It was one of the most visually interesting places I had ever been, with deep crevices, overhangs, waterfalls and rapids.  As predicted, much of the general public was having a rough go of it.  We saw teenagers with lattes in their hands sliding around on flip flops like they were ice skating.  Old ladies with looks of terror on their faces being led down the gorge by their irresponsible middle aged children (perhaps with an eye towards accelerating the inheritance).  Overweight people asking if they were there yet.  A guy trying to take pictures with an iPad.  We think most of these people went down the gorge thinking it was a ride—like Disneyland.  Oy vey.

After the hike we decided to book out of the crowded town and either drive to Ithaca or find someplace for lunch in the country.  As it turned out we found an old-school diner on the way and had a cheeseburger (me) and a grilled cheese (Ann).  Asked directions to Treman Park, another place with a nice hike, and drove 10 minutes up the road to the park. 

Treman Park (named for the Treman who was also the supposed namesake of Trumansburg) had another of the area's incredible gorges and we hiked up a very high rim trail with great views.  At one point we came to a very steep, long set of stone stairs going up a cliff.  Ann did not like the stairs and let me know about it by squeezing the blood out of my arm.  If I ever need a tourniquet I am in business—I just need to lead Ann to the top of a cliff and tell her we have to climb down.

On the way down I suggested we go cross country and told Ann that by my calculation we had to walk straight for 45 minutes (I figured about a mile and a half at a walking pace in the woods) then go left down the valley and we would find our car.  She did not like this plan.  At all.  In fact she looked like a shying horse with rolling eyes that does not want to be dragged into the stall.  It may be that she did not have confidence in my orienteering skills, which is hard to believe.  Anyway, I humored her and we went back down the way we had come. 

At the bottom of the park we came to a camping area.  This was not like the camping I did with my dad as a kid.  We used to go backpacking, carrying all of our gear on our backs including fishing rods that allowed us to avoid malnutrition during a week in the woods.  These people had a different approach.  They drove in with RVs, campers, coolers, grills, beer kegs, you name it.  The majority of the adults we saw were drinking beer and showed signs of having started doing so before noon.  Dirty little urchins were ganging up on the smallest little urchin and chasing him with sticks.  A toothless woman was stirring a pot of something over a fire while drinking a long neck.  Ann has never liked the idea of camping and this was definitely not the way to get her converted.

That night we went back into Trumansburg.  Ann, to my surprise, had made reservations at a restaurant in Trumansburg.  I would not have suspected that any restaurant in Trumansburg would require reservations.  However, this was an implausible three star restaurant named the Hazlenut Kitchen run by two chefs from the east coast who decided to open a place of their own in a small progressive town in upstate New York.  They landed in Trumansburg.  This was also the first time it had occurred to me that Trumansburg was progressive (although the macciato our first morning should have been a clue). 

Now that I think of it, I don't really know what they mean by progressive.  I'm pretty sure they mean there are lots of democrats in the neighborhood.  Progressive would definitely imply that you can get a good cup of coffee such as the macciato.  It also probably means that many residents are overeducated and underemployed, perhaps using their abundant free time at the plaza outside Starbucks to protest against greed.  Ironically, greedy insensitive conservatives also like progressive areas—not to live in, but as a place to get good coffee, go to art galleries and dine at three star restaurants.

As an aside, on the way to the restaurant, Ann called the B&B to tell them we would not be having breakfast the following morning (we just didn't think we could face it).  I heard her get F***ing Mitch on the phone and explain to him that we had to get on the road back to Cleveland early in the morning.  Apparently there was a long silence at the other end of the phone.  Ann reported that Mitch was speechless and that this had clearly never happened before in the history of their little inn.  As I said, we are really bad at B&B.

Dinner was very good.  We passed on the nightcap at the Little Venice—after all it was Sunday night and we were also concerned that we might begin to get a bad reputation around town as a couple of bar rats.  After all, we had developed a social position in the community and had to be careful about perceptions.  However, Ann challenged me to a game of pool so we wandered down to the Rongovian Embassy and played a game.  I totally owned her.  Back to the B&B, sneak up to room, bed.