Back To The Grid (After Hiking Letchworth Park Gorge)

Foggy Morning at 7:17

It feels like it has been days but actually I have only missed one morning sunrise here at the lake, that was Wednesday.  It is always good to come home, to your own bed, back to wifi after a long trip of 36 hours.  This morning the lake is obscured by fog, only the dock is visible and it's 52º. Today is a big day for us...we write a big check and come home with a new Subaru Outback.  Scary stuff.

Resting During Our Climb

We spent most of yesterday at Letchworth State Park, heading home to the lake around 3:00.  It was another clear, warm day.  We started our day with breakfast in the Inn: eggs, sausage, home fries and toast.  We don't usually like breakfast out but this was a good day to have it.  We ended up talking with another interesting couple, from Binghamton, NY, also here for a day.  We have met a number of couples that we have struck up conversations with and if we were staying longer, we might suggest having dinner together.  We met another couple on our hike later in the afternoon, a couple we had talked with Tuesday night, and visited with them for a good twenty minutes, finding out about their lives and we both wish we had more time to talk.

Upper Falls

After breakfast, we checked out, put our bags in the car and drove to the parking lot above the Upper falls, near the railroad bridge.  We then hiked down five to ten sets of steps, so that we could get a picturesque view of the falls and the bridge.  The view was almost worth it as we then had to climb back up these steps to get to the car, more than a good workout on a stair machine at the YMCA.

We then stopped at the Letchworth Museum, across the road from the Glen Iris and browsed it and its native American artifacts and history of the park for a half hour.  Letchworth comes across as not only a philanthropist but a humanist, contributing time and money to the dispossessed, the poor, homeless, even prisoners.  An amazing American.

The Gorge Beyond The Falls

We then drove to another section of the gorge, towards the north end, parked our car at the St. Helena lot and hiked to Wolf's Den, about forty five minutes through pine forests, with a final climb down some steep steps to the picnic area, abutting a huge water fall.  We sat and relaxed on some rocks near the origin of the falls, then walked back to St. Helena.  We were tempted by a sign at St. Helena's that mentioned a path down to the Genesse River, about a mile in length.

Evie was all for it, so we parked our car and headed down the road, steep at first but it quickly and fortunately flattened out.  It took about twenty minutes to get to the river and vast shore of rocks.  It was sunny, warm, and we were the only ones on the river, so what did we do?  Stripped down to our shorts and went into the water, wading and cooling off because it was fairly shallow.  Evie loved it, of course, and ended up sitting on a rock in the water eating her lunch.  We stayed there, enjoying the sun and water, looking at rocks, for about an hour before walking back up the path to our car. It was a good choice.  By the time we got to our car, we had enough hiking, having walked over four miles, much of it up hill.  We were ready to head home.

Happy Rock Sitting On The Genesse River

Our ride home was easy and scenic, as the valleys and tree filled hills around the Ellicottville area were just starting to turn gold.  What a beautiful part of the state, as scenic as any of the venues in the East.  We stopped in Ellicottville for a coffee, browsed in a shop briefly, then drove home, getting back at 5:30. The lake was still there, blue and inviting but we resisted the temptation to go for a swim to assuage our sore muscles.

We unpacked, relaxed in our living room, with a glass of wine, happy to be back on our Ipad and computer.  I finished and published my blog, eight hours later than usual, as we agonized over which photographs to include.  Dinner was a no brainer, hot dogs and a salad, no fuss, no muss, and watched two more episodes of The Fall, a series which is becoming increasingly maddening, as they are drawing out the eventual capture of the serial killer.  What could have been five episodes is being  drawn out to ten.  Bed at 10:30 felt good but the smoke alarm going off at 12:30 was enough to make me want to rip it out of the ceiling.  This happened four days ago, so I changed the batteries and that night, all seemed well.  Obviously it's not.