I started off my trip by leaving my house at 11:45 pm and heading to South Station bus terminal for my bus ride departing at 1am to NYC. The ride was uneventful except for the fact that I felt the driver was driving like a bat out of hell and it was not necessary. Also, I never sleep well on moving vehicles but I did attempt for the whole hours and possibly got a few minutes here and there of sleep. The big problem was that many of Greyhound's buses, although they are updated, are leather-type seats meaning when your driver is driving crazy, you slip all over the place and it makes it even harder to fall asleep! Oh well, I made it to NYC by 5am (20 minutes earlier than we were supposed to and we even left late...yeah he was driving fast). I then walked through the disgusting NY Midtown near Penn Station at 5am (I love NY, but it was too city and nasty at that hour) to the 24-hour diner I had looked up previously that was about 8 blocks away, called the Skylight Diner. There were clearly people there getting some drunk munchies from the night out and here I was rolling in from "just waking up"...quite the opposite! The food was very diner-ish and filling and I slowly ate my meal for the next 2 hours while reading my book. Then I walked back to the station to grab my bus to Ithaca via Binghamton. Pretty uneventful trip, thankfully, and I made it to Ithaca by 1pm.
I met up with my friend Lauren and we drove to a parking garage where I quickly changed a few items of clothing so I wasn't in bus-attire, and we headed to a Mexican restaurant, Viva Taqueria, near the Ithaca commons. By chance, Lauren's sister and her sister's BF were in town for a family graduation at the same time so we met up with them at the restaurant! We shared guacamole and all ordered the green chile enchiladas. A nice slow easing into the weekend of drinking is what this meal was :)
Next, we drove over to Ithaca Beer Company and put our name on the list for a free tour. We had just been told by Lauren's sister to check out the Buttermilk Gorge near the brewery, so we asked the guy taking down our name if we could make it in time to see the gorge and back for our tour at 4. He was clearly an outdoors enthusiast and pretty much said, "well you only have 40 minutes and there are trails." We were like, "well we just want to see THE gorge or water bit, can we see that?" He basically was like "fine, try." So we drive the 5 minutes there and immediately saw the waterfall thinger-ma-jig, AKA the gorge. Like, it is the FIRST thing you see. We got out, took a look and some pics, Lauren grabbed a coffee from Tim Horton's, and we were still back with 5 minutes to spare to grab a beer for the tour. DO NOT CHALLENGE US :)
Finally we let and drove up to Aurora, where we were staying the night at the Days Inn. My second Days Inn in a month, and I am happy with them for a budget motel experience! We grabbed a light dinner at Prison City Brewing-great apps, meh beer, but it was done up nice and quite new. For apps we had the poutine (of course), chickpea fries, and pretzel bites, and we got one dessert to eat and one to take home (more on that one later). Then we checked into our hotel, prepped for the day tomorrow and went to sleep.
Day 2:
We woke up after a good night of sleep (much needed for myself), got ready, had our continental breakfast, and were on our way to our first and only winery on Cayuga Lake, Sheldrake Point Winery. I was SO happy that we stopped here first. The people were so friendly and helpful in helping us plan our trip and telling us local secrets (not really secrets lol) of what places we NEEDED to stop at. The tasting guide (what do you call them?) took us through a tasting, and based on what we liked or didn't like, recommend places. We spent a bit of time, learned a lot about the area (such as why the Finger Lakes is such a great wine region), bought a dry rosé (popular in this region now), and we were on our way to the Hector area on Seneca Lake.
We stopped at Hector Wine Company, where we did a small tasting. Wines were good there as well, but I didn't buy any there (I had already set a precedent and didn't want to go crazy). Next up was one of my favorites, Atwater Estate Vineyards. This winery was so picturesque being situated high up on a hill with its vineyards along the slopes down to the lake. Very pretty and the weather was shaping up to be a gorgeous, perfect day for wine tasting :) The wines here were quite good, and I ended up buying one (a vignole). I was also slowing finding out that I like Gewurztraminers quite a lot! Next on our list was heading to Watkins Glen for lunch, but we made the split decision to visit Finger Lakes Distilling where we shared a tasting of a Riesling Brandy, a bourbon, and a honey whiskey. The honey whiskey was excellent and if I wasn't cheap, I might have purchased it. They also had some pickles there to taste and I was OBSESSED and almost bough the maple-something bread and butter pickles!
We left there quite satisfied and headed into Watkins Glen for lunch at Nickel's Pit BBQ, which I had read about. It was in an old firehouse which made the set-up pretty cool. We sat outside and I had a local brew by Rooster Fish, a refreshing blonde. For lunch I had the Triple Hog sandwich which had pulled pork, bacon, and kielbasa on it and a side of jalapeno pepper-dew mac and cheese, yum! Next we decided to drive to a winery on Keuka Lake. We hadn't intended to check out this lake because it was slightly out of the way, but the guy at the Sheldrake told us we should experience McGregor Vineyards, so we drove over there. It was pretty good, and we tried a few unique wines. The view was nice too because it was right where Keuka forks. Not necessarily worth the out of the way, but more impressive that we visited a winery on each lake in one day :)
Day 3:
We woke up the next morning for breakfast at 9am. IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! A full breakfast with coffee, OJ, eggs, potatoes, fruit, and french toast! We also had some lovely conversation with the couple staying there who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary! I hope I look that good when I celebrate my 50th...with whoever that may be ;) After breakfast, we checked out the back pond again because I wanted to sip my coffee on the chairs outside and enjoy the peace...for the 10 minutes that we had haha! We saw the horses this time around though, which was cool!
So then we drove on over to Anthony Road-a popular place. On the way though, we saw another one of the wineries on our recommended list, Red Tail Ridge Winery, and so we stopped. This place would be really beautiful when the vines are full because the tasting room is quite off the road and you drive through the vineyard to get there. The wines were pretty tasty, but I was starting a new trend for he day- NOT buying :) Next, we headed to the award-wining winery, Anthony Road. The wine guy was kind-of flirty, which was fun, and the wines were good, I just didn't find anything that stood out to me. Proof that I'm clearly not a wine connoisseur.
Day 4:
I got up early so that I could check out, store my luggage, and walk back to the bus station to take the local bus (about an hour) to Niagara Falls! I missed the first bus, but it was okay because they come every 30 minutes and I hadn't had breakfast yet. So, I grabbed some Tim Horton's and waited. The bus ride was uneventful except for the windows were open and it was FREEZING. I was thinking that shorts were a horrible idea. Luckily, as soon as I got to Niagara Falls the weather cleared up and it was sunny and beautiful! Shorts were an a-okay idea after all :)
My first stop was the information center to get a map and my bearings. I decided to make sure I saw the Canada side first because everyone told me the view is better from over there, so I walked across Rainbow Bridge and across the US/Canada Boundary Line! Pretty cool :) So basically the American Falls are the better looking falls (I think), but you can't see them from the American side as well as you can from Canada, so that is why you go there. Plus, Horseshoe Falls (the Canadian falls) are seen better from Canada as well. The walk over to the Journey Behind the Falls was beautiful and I stopped multiple times to take great shots. My next stop was the Journey Behind the Falls, where you get to go behind Horseshoe Falls. It was about $18 and I gotta say, it was cool, but I expected more of it and it wasn't worth $18. $10 maybe. Oh well, I did it! I grabbed a little snack of seaweed salad (the most expensive seaweed salad I've ever had) and then made my way back across the bridge to America.