Day Two

Day 2

Woke up at 8:30, which for me is close to a world record.  Usually I'm up around 7 am on weekends.  The bed was comfortable, it was quiet and I had absolutely nothing I had to do.  However, my feeling of well being did not last long.  Upon our arrival on Friday, F***ing Mitch had told us that breakfast was served at 9:00 am.  There is something about a B&B breakfast that gives me the willies.  A bunch of strangers sitting around a table awkwardly looking at each other while they are served obscene quantities of high carbohydrate, gooey baked stuff and coffee that has flavors in it.  Bad flavors like cinnamon and mocha-mint.  They don't seem to realize that coffee is a flavor.  There's no way to improve on it.  A feeling of dread set in and when I looked over at Ann I could tell she felt it too.

A half hour later we went downstairs to face the music, or in this case the green chili egg “poof” with sweet glaze.  The other lodgers were sitting around the table staring eagerly at the kitchen door like dogs with their tongues hanging out, waiting for Mitch to appear with the morning's 2,500 calories (not counting the pecan rolls).  I chatted with several of them, wondering what their plans were for the day.  They all seemed to be focused on trails of one sort or another.  No, not trails where you actually hike.  There was a “Wine Trail” of local vineyards where you could do tastings and eat stuff.  There was a “Chocolate Trail” of local artisanal confectioners.  There was an “Art Trail” of local artists' studios, though I imagine these had to also serve high calorie goodies to keep the tourists happy.

Shortly Mitch appeared in the doorway in his usual glory—rumpled Jimmy Buffett shirt (untucked with the first three buttons open), 1970s vintage Levis and the omnipresent white socks with no shoes.  Ann believes his hair was blow dried, which suggested Mitch actually cared about his appearance which in turn suggested that his bizzarre getup was intentional.  Our perceptions of ourselves are not always accurate.  I suspect that the Mitch that lived in Mitch’s mind was young, a class clown, edgy and maybe even a ladies man.  Clearly the blow dried hair and Key West shirt were a look that was frozen in time from an earlier, happier era. 

Mitch was carrying the aforementioned green chili egg “poofs” with pink glaze drizzled on them.  I fought back an involuntary gag reflex and focused on the mounds of baked stuff in the center of the table to try to settle my stomach.  Ann, who is normally very friendly, was surprisingly withdrawn throughout breakfast as she tried to choke down a few bites of the egg stuff.  Everybody else agreed loudly that it was a wonderful breakfast and some were asking for the recipe as Ann and I made a quick exit stage left.

As we got ready to go out for the day, we could hear the rest of the guests laughing and having a great time for the next half hour.  That's when we realized we were really bad at B&B.  We didn't think Mitch's jokes were funny, we didn't gather 'round the campfire to bond with our housemates, we arrived just in time for breakfast and left as soon as we could politely escape, we didn't ask for recipes and we had no interest in the Chocolate Trail. 

At 10 am or so we left for Taughannook State Park, right down the road, to hike a beautiful gorge.  We stopped in town at the local coffee shop for a real cup of coffee that I hoped would wash away the taste of the horrible flavored brew at the B&B.  My brother had recently told me that he liked a macchiato coffee, which is basically an Italian espresso with a little bit of milk foam on top.  It sounded both sophisticated and, well, macho, so I ordered one.  It put hair on my chest but succeeded in the dual goals of getting me appropriately caffeinated and washing away the cinnamon coffee taste.  I think I scare Ann a little bit when I'm fully caffeinated, which is fun.

When we got to Taughannock State Park an old park ranger showed us where to park and then started spewing a bunch of irrelevant stories about a Loch Ness monster in Lake Cayuga and rock ledges coming loose and smooshing scores of tourists, who died slow agonizing deaths.  He did this at ear-splitting volume (he must have been deaf).   Silly as the stories were, these were not good ideas to plant in Ann's head since she believes most outings with me have a good chance of resulting in death or dismemberment.  She has perception issues. 

The ranger also did his best to disprove myths he thought we might be told about Indian tribes living on these grounds as “a bunch of crapola”.   These and other truths were shouted at us enthusiastically amidst a torrent of spit.  Ann tends to immediately fall in love with such colorful characters, despite the obvious hygiene issues.  So, naturally, I got a picture of the two of them. This so pleased him that he lurched into an even louder torrent of more bizarre and unrelated facts.   It took a while, but eventually we made our escape.

We hiked up the south rim of the gorge and walked back on the north rim trail.  There was a spectacular waterfall at the top of the gorge that fell hundreds of feet.  Lake Cayuga was at the bottom of the trail and at the end of the hike we walked around the little park and marina by the lake and watched a few boats put in. 

We then drove into Ithaca for lunch and found a cute little restaurant on a pedestrian mall in the center of town.  On our way to the restaurant we met Ithaca's version of the Occupy Wall Street protests.  It was a forlorn looking group of earnest people, all of whom seemed older than 50.  They carried signs saying “Frack Wall Street!”  This was apparently to show both solidarity with their brothers in the Wall Street protests and to take a pot shot at the local gas companies who are trying to frack all of upstate New York to get at the natural gas in the shale below.

Fracking is a technique whereby a company drills a hole very deep in the ground, sets off an incredible explosion at the bottom of the hole and blows sand into the resulting fractures in the underground rock, thereby letting the natural gas escape up the well.  The only problem with fracking is that it reportedly sometimes fractures delicate aquifers and inadvertently pollutes an area's drinking water for all time.  There have been cases reported of gas coming out of faucets and igniting inside people's houses.  The gas industry claims fracking is safe but there is significant resistance from many residents of New York and Pennsylvania where much of the drilling is taking place—hence “Frack Wall Street” (a confused message, but it has a certain ring to it).  I have no idea who is right but I know (a) I like cheap gas, and (b) they better not do any fracking in my back yard.

As an aside about the Occupy Wall Street protests, I mentioned to a friend the other day that the whole thing seemed stupid to me.  I said that protesting against Wall Streeters was like protesting against cockroaches.  Just as cockroaches are attracted to open cereal boxes and crumbs on the floor, Wall Streeters are attracted to easy money.  There is no point in blaming them for being cockroaches (or Wall Streeters).  They can’t help it.

Ben Stein spoke at a conference I attended recently and he had a similar take.  He said that when our generation protested we wanted something—for example, civil rights or an end to the Vietnam war.  The Occupy Wall Street protests claim to be protesting against greed.  Ben Stein said protesting against greed is like protesting against breathing.  It is an essential part of our human nature, without which we would wander around aimlessly doing meaningless things like, well, occupying Wall Street.