By Land and Sea

I can definitely tell that summer has burned itself out.  Last night it dropped to 45 degrees, and we used the furnace to take the chill out of the air in the RV this morning.  Beautiful, clear day, however, great for outdoor activities.

Google Maps suggested a couple different routes back into Watkins Glen and I took a different suggested route from yesterday.  It’s such beautiful, rolling countryside out here it would be a shame to drive the same way twice.  23 minutes was the suggested time.  It took us about twice that.  That same rolling countryside means steep hills, both up and down, and this route had its share of them.  The last segment was so steep it required crawling down the hill in low gear at 15 miles per hour to keep the vehicle under control. The views of Watkins Glen, Seneca Lake, and the surrounding farms and wooded land were spectacular.  

First on the agenda this morning, kayaking.  We parked at the Seneca Lake Kayak Launch along with a few fishermen and an outfitter that was just setting up for the day.  This outfitter offered kayak rentals and a guided tour to Hector Falls, which was our destination for the day, but we were going to go it alone, thank you very much.

We hugged the east shore of the lake for about two miles until the little inlet leading to the falls, almost completely hidden among the vacation homes clustered tightly on either side of the small stream.  Very few places for vacation homes in this area as most of this shoreline is sheer cliffs.

Hector Falls is a nice cascade, not visible from anywhere except a kayak on the lower stream.  The picture had to be taken carefully to eliminate the sea walls and homes along either side of the stream.

We read that it’s best to do this in the morning as the wind picks up later in the day and the water can get quite choppy.  Even as we were paddling back, the wind was definitely stronger, pushing up 1-foot swells.  Fortunately, the wind was behind us and the swells were actually pushing us in the right direction, making the return trip easy.

I was surprised at how warm the water in the lake was.  I stuck my hand in the water, expecting that bracing shock of cold water, instead it was warm.  The water coming from Hector Falls, however, was cold.

Arriving back, we hung the kayaks on the RV, drove a few hundred yards to Clute Park, and made lunch in the parking lot.  We then unloaded the bikes and took off down the Catharine Valley Trail, a former rail bed.  Not paved like some of our rail-to-trails back home, just hard-pack and sometimes just a single track, until the trail petered out after about 14 miles.  Signs indicated that it goes a lot further, but a careful look reveals that the next segment is “future planned”.

One thing there are a lot of around here is waterfalls.  Montour Falls, a little town a few miles down the trail from Watkins Glen has a few of them, one of them right next to a major street and all-of-a-sudden visible on the right as you pass by.  I rode right by it, but Deb spotted it and we stopped to take a look. Perfect place for a selfie.

The bike trail was not very well marked and we ended up getting lost a couple times, but we prevailed and rode the entire distance of the trail.  Very pleasant ride on a perfect day.

We made dinner after arriving back at Clute Park. So far, dinners have been leftovers queued up over the last month or two and frozen just for this purpose.  Makes for a very quick preparation and tasty dinners on the road.

We took a walk through town and ended up on the pier at the public marina.  Mostly to work through the stiffness caused by climbing so many stairs the last couple of days.  Nice park and pier in town, the number of sailboats gives a hint of the kind of wind this lake can generate.   The kind of wind that can be a kayaker’s nightmare.

Five days in: our progress so far: