Day 7 – A Watkins Glen Sampler

Today’s Blog Entry

Cindy and I started the day with our re-location to Watkins Glen State Park. This was an easy 1-1/2 hour drive to the southeast, mostly on Interstate roads.

After checking in and setting up camp we took a hike down a trail on the south rim of the gorge to the park’s visitor center. This impressive facility is somewhat unusually located right on Franklin Street, the main drag in Watkins Glen, so we decided to extend our walk into town. What was supposed to be just a quick leg stretch and preview of the next day’s hike turned into a much more substantial walk.

We walked Franklin Street all the way to the southern tip of Seneca Lake where they have a decent-sized marina as well as an amusing jumble of boat houses built over a network of piers. It would be fascinating to learn how this rather unique and eclectic community developed over the years as I was kind of hard-pressed to believe that anything resembling building codes were involved!

After returning to our campsite we took showers, put on some presentable clothes (not just hiking gear), and headed off for Castel Grisch, a local winery that was advertising an evening of live music.
Cindy had prepared a nice hors d’oeuvres picnic dinner for us so we enjoyed that with a great view and a bottle of the vineyard’s own dry Riesling.

The music was provided by a talented and experienced guitarist by the name of Harry Havery. He had an almost encyclopedic repertoire of 60’s and 70’s tunes along with a voice that worked very well for so many songs of that era. For some of the earlier Beatles tunes you’d swear that it was actually Paul doing the vocals!

Today’s Map

Today’s Photos