It's the end of a long but good day, and I'm tired. We're back to our home base, and it's only 8 pm - too early to go to bed, so I'll see what I can remember about our day today.
Several years ago, we came to Ithaca to tour Cornell University with Wally, and as part of that trip, we visited Cornell's Botanical Gardens. I remembered them as the best botanical gardens I had ever visited, so I wanted to see them again. That was our destination for the morning. This time, as well as exploring the botanical gardens, we visited the adjacent arboretum. We had a pleasant few hours wandering around both of them.
Soon enough, lunch was calling, and after a few misses with recommended places, we ended up at Purity Ice Cream for burgers and fries, which were pretty good. Purity had been recommended for the ice cream, so we planned to come back for it after another hike.
Next, we visited Taughannock State Park (Thanks, Janet Wood, for the recommendation.) to see the 215' Taughannock Falls. The hike through the gorge was on a wide trail with a steep hill on one side and a wide flat stream bed on the other. Quite a pleasant 1.5-mile walk, especially since the weather continued to cooperate with temperatures around 60 F.
The other side of the park ran along Lake Cayuga, and we took a walk along the shore after we saw the falls. It was not quite as windy and cold as our walk along Seneca Lake yesterday, but windy all the same. Just windy enough to work up an appetite for ice cream, so back we went to Purity Ice Cream.
Purity Ice Cream has been in business since 1936 and was on almost everyone's list of places to go to in the area. During our visit this time, Wally had a huge milkshake, and the rest of us had hot fudge brownie sundaes of various kinds. Purity did an excellent job in living up to its reputation.
Then it was back to our cabin in the woods for a catch as catch can supper with the various things we had in the fridge. No one went hungry, and some were still not hungry after their ice cream treat.
And here we are once again back at the beginning of the post. As it turns out, the TV where we're staying has several streaming services we don't get, so we're enjoying some shows as we relax from our busy days. So I think that's where I'm headed now.
Below are some pictures from the day.
The Botanical Gardens
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| Not surprisingly, these are called waterlily crocus. |
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| I'm always inspired by the layering and variety of textures I see in gardens. But, of course, It never looks quite the same when I try it. |
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| A possible idea for another way to do our split rail fence. |
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| These naranjilla leaves had spikes on both the top and bottom of the leaves. |
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| Ward and Theo examining the allium sculpture. |
The Arboretum:
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| Maple trees |
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| We could hear frogs in this pond. |
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| Theo at Newman's Overlook |
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| Birch trees |
Taughannock State Park:
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| There were other falls along the way to the tall ones. |
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| Where the stream was shallow, there were expanses of rock exposed. |
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| Taughannock Falls |
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| Lake Cayuga |
Purity Ice Cream:
