finger lakes day 3

Ventosa

Back in the Finger Lakes again....

We awoke and went to breakfast in our hotel. We heard on the TV in the lobby about the shootings and bombings in Norway. I hadn't been paying attention to the news the past couple days so that news was a bit of a shocker.

The first thing we did was tour Rose Hill Mansion. B and I had toured this mansion years ago when restoration was starting. I was very impressed with the progress made here. Every room was nicely appointed and our tour guide was very informed about the family who had lived there and their history.

Next we stopped at Ventosa Winery. It is a very beautiful new winery overlooking vineyards and Seneca Lake. It would be a lovely setting for a wedding.

The we stopped at Three Brothers....three wineries grouped together that reflect the personalities of the three brothers. There is that word again.....personality. I guess they each had one and each was unique. One winery was upscale and snooty, one fun loving and the third was downright raunchy. They also had a brewery. I didn't really care for any of the wines here that much. Most were too sweet for me and the upscale winery ones were raw and unfinished. So the wines were not my favorites but the wineries themselves were fun.

We headed to Canandaigua next. Here we had lunch at another cute bar and grille on another cute downtown main street. I had the portobello mushroom sandwich here. Then we toured Sonnenberg Gardens...another large summer home mansion built by the New York banker who started Citibank. The gardens were incredible. Breathtaking!

We checked into our hotel in Rochester and drove downtown to meet my good good friend Barb for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, 2 Vine. I had a bucket of mussels here as I so often do. And a pretty lavender martini.

After dinner Barb came back to our room and we chatted and had a bottle of wine and planned our Day 4.

he who lives in a glass house

gigantic bowl of fruit


glass fan


inlaid glass armoire


Tree of Life window from the Darwin D Martin house....I wish they would return it


cut glass replica of the Liberty Bell complete with crack


green chandelier


free standing chandelier


baptismal font


Dale Chihuly pink cupid chandelier

do you have a personality

Once when I was visiting my younger sister, her daughter, my niece Katie, who couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old, went around the room checking to see if we all had a personality. She would hold some toy of hers above our heads and ask "Do you have a personality?" to see if we had one. Everyone in the room had a personality until she came to me. She held the toy above my head, then looked at it and declared "Nope. No personality." And at the time, I believed that I agreed.

green salad

one day i made a green salad....completely green

cucumber

kiwi

celery

broccoli

the dressing was dijon mustard, honey, lime juice, olive oil and rice vinegar

a glass menagerie

a glass half full

multi-facets

As I was out walking at lunchtime, I was trying to analyze myself; something I have done many times with inconclusive results. I am like this. No, I am like this. This is the way I am. I’m not really that way at all. I got to thinking that I’m multi-faceted. And most people are but some more than others I think. I started to liken personalities to gems.
Some people know what they want starting at a very young age. They know what they want to be and where their interests lie. These people are probably an Emerald cut. A very large flat surface with varying levels of other interests on either side. They are never wavering.
Some people are Marquise. They have a couple of different interests and are pulled between the two. Marquise is my least favorite cut though. It looks sharp and caustic to me. I know someone who was cut by someone’s Marquise diamond and had to be taken to the ER for stitches.
Oval cut people are probably very balanced. They have quite a few interests and facets to their personalities that revolve around a centrally located interest….probably family.
Hearts are probably hopeless romantics. They love someone or something especially but are still balanced.
Pears…..I don’t know. These people are a little more complicated.
Princess, Radiant and Trillion….again fairly balanced with a major purpose or goal.
I think I fall into Glyptic and Fantasy Cuts….a jack of all trades sort of a person. No clear cut goals. Interests all over the board…..morphing and changing. I often think I’d like a different line of work for every day. I like change. And then again I like things to be the same. But all in all I think I like change.
Sometimes I like to be alone. Sometimes I like to be surrounded by people. Sometimes I think I don’t want to go to some function and then I’m the last to leave. Sometimes I think I have multiple personalities. I’m making too much of this. We probably all feel the same way. Well, not all of us, I’m sure. But some of us, I’m sure.

glass and wine

Dale Chihuly's Fern Green Tower

On Thursday we awoke to Day 2 in the Finger Lakes. This was our grandiose plan....Drive down to Corning at the bottom of the lake (even a way beyond the lake......Corning is not on the lake). In Corning we had plans to visit The Corning Museum of Glass and the Western Art Museum in the historic district. I was excited. I knew my friends would like this. I've been there before some years back. Then we were going to slowly make our way back up the west side of the lake stopping first in Watkins Glen at the tip of Seneca Lake to hike the gorge. The gorge is two miles long, 300 feet deep featuring many waterfalls and stone steps. After we hiked we were going to drive back to Geneva stopping at wineries along the way to taste and buy.

We arrived at the museum at about 10:00 am. We took a guided tour first and learned all about how Corning Glass Works made the 200 inch, 40,000 lb disc to be used as a lens in the Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory in Pasadena, CA. How it took years to complete with operations halted for World War II, how it took a year to cool, 16 days to transport by train to Pasadena CA and became a major news event. It is still being used today. The first attempt cracked and is displayed in the museum. Then we walked through the museum. I love this place. I am going to give you a tour of what I saw right here on my blog next post.

After the museum tour it was about 1 pm. We were hungry so we took the trolley to the historic downtown Gaffer's Row district, decided to nix the art museum and had a tasty lunch. We ate at a cute bar and grille. Our booth was old, wooden and completely enclosed like a private room. I had a barbecued chicken salad and an ice cold Margarita for lunch. I have to pause here a second. You can carry on while I fondly remember. UMMM!!!

Okay, it was 100 degrees, none of us had brought appropriate footwear out of the seven pairs each of sandals and flip flops we had packed for vacation. If we hiked, the wineries would close before we got to them. Nix the hike. I drove slowly past the gorge so we could peer into it and imagine what a lovely time we would have had on the hike.

First we stopped at Cascata Winery. We almost didn't stop here because it was a pink slightly rundown-looking farmhouse. In retrospect we are happy we did stop because it turned out to have some of the best wine. A baby German Shepard greeted us at the door. So happy to see us with his baby face and big awkward paws. So we tasted and purchased and moved on to Fox Run. Here we only purchased. We already knew this wine was good. Glenora was our next winery. It looked out over the lake. All the wines were great here as well. I especially enjoyed the Sparkling White.

We stopped at Belhurst Castle to make a dinner reservation. Belhurst really is a castle. Besides the original rooms in the castle they have built a new more modern addition with another restaurant, a spa and a store with a tasting room. Next stop was Geneva on the Lake. This hotel is geared towards romance and couples. We plopped down in Adirondack chairs on the edge of a cliff and rested awhile.


gardens leading to the Roman pool at Geneva on the Lake


looking back to the hotel


the pool....isn't it romantic?


our view from the Adirondack chairs


outdoor chapel


Carla and Donna relaxing in the shade on this 100 degree day


my view looking straight out


my view looking straight down

After dinner in the castle...salmon this time....off the $24.95 fixed price menu. It included Caesar salad, cup of mushroom soup, bread, veggie and chocolate mousse.

Back in our rooms we shared a bottle of wine and watched Limitless thus ending Day 2 of our little Finger Lakes trip.

took a little trip

Take a little trip. Take a little trip. Take a little trip and see. Take a little trip. Take a little trip. Take a little trip with me ...



My friends, Donna and Carla, flew from Chicago on Wednesday to take a little trip with me to the Finger Lakes. Our destination....Geneva NY at the top of Seneca Lake. At forty miles long, Seneca Lake is the largest of the Finger Lakes. We planned to sightsee and visit the wineries that surround the lakes.

They got to Buffalo at noon. I picked them up and we headed directly to Wegmans. Donna has visited me before and got to see the glorious Wegmans. Carla had not visited Buffalo and was anxious to see Wegmans. She was duly impressed.

We bought several kinds of salads and brought them back to my house for lunch on the patio. Then we loaded up the car and headed for Geneva via Route 20...the scenic route. Unfortunately there were two detours on the scenic route which added an extra half hour to our trip. We arrived around 5:00 in Geneva, checked into our Hampton Inn and walked across the street to the Ramada Inn where we had a cocktail on the patio on Seneca Lake.

Then dinner at Nonna's Trattoria. I had beans, greens and homemade gnocchi. It was delicious. We split a bottle of Fox Run Chardonnay.

After dinner we walked the historic downtown area but it was dead on a Wednesday eve. So we took a drive along the lake to check out some of the wineries we wanted to visit. It was dark and we could hardly see anything but we did locate a couple of places. The desk clerk had told us that all the wineries closed at 5:00 pm. We had wanted to buy a bottle to drink in the room that night. We took her at her word. We subsequently found the next day that this wasn't so. Some of them closed later and we could have bought a bottle that evening. We stopped in at Wegmans again...this time to buy some fancy chocolate bars. Then we went back to our hotel and went to bed bringing our Day 1 to a close.

you had me at "natural"

natural, all natural, organic, unbleached, biodegradable, earth friendly, European

Why is it that I have trouble resisting these words and fill my cart with all the new "natural" products? But I must say that these sponges with loofah on one side are the best I've found for cleaning the bathtub. Love 'em.



and these are tasty little morsels

There is also a cracked pepper and salt flavor. I don't know which of the three I like best. But it may be the curry and mango ones.

jazz on the pond

Some posts require a little more work than others. Narrowing down what pictures to post out of a gazillion, researching the facts, writing it up, remembering it all. Last year I went on an awesome trip to Savannah GA with friends. I wanted to post all about it, but it was a lot of work, and time passed and I never posted.

B and I went to this awesome event on Saturday July 9th. Time is passing again and my post is again delayed but I don't want to not post about it simply out of laziness. I had such fun and it was an interesting and admirable event and I wanted to take time to do it justice. Justice aside....here is a bit of our experience.

Jay texted B one day that he had a friend who was attending this event. Jay thought it might be something that B and I would enjoy since it involves jazz in Rochester and B and I have attended the Rochester International Jazz Festival several times.

I was sitting on the patio when B came out and told me about the text. He asked if I would be interested in going because he knows that jazz is not really my favorite form of music. Not pure jazz anyway. I've found that there are many types of jazz I do appreciate since attending the jazz festivals. Nordic jazz is quite ethereal and unique for instance. Funny....I've read that jazz and metal are music genres appreciated by very intelligent people because they are so intricate and based on math. I guess I'm a dummy. So anyway he told me a little about it and I said I would be interested. So he went in to look at the website and find out about tickets prices etc.

He returned a few minutes later and said that tickets were $150 each so he guessed that ruled out going. I responded that we never go anywhere on vacation and you could easily spend $100 on a nice dinner and this included dinner and sounded like an experience on top of it.....and it was for a very good cause....something dear to his heart.



So this is what it is all about. Five years ago David Belasco, an entrepreneurship professor at USC Marshall School of Business and former resident of Rochester, NY, purchased a piece of property along Cranberry Pond, an inlet of Lake Ontario in Rochester. He built a lovely beach house on this property for himself and his four siblings to use. He hung a picture of his mother, Doris, in the entryway. She had loved music of all kinds especially jazz. To honor her and her love of music he thought it would be a dream to have a party at this property for family and friends and invite some of the best musicians in the US to play on his back porch. The first year this is exactly what happened. But then the siblings thought maybe they should turn this into a fundraiser for a cause. What better cause than the Eastman School of Music in Rochester? The second year they invited the public. This year, the fifth, they presented the school with $50,000 for scholarships for Eastman students.

We checked in at the front of the house and received our bands for our wrists. Only 400 tickets were sold as this was all they could accommodate on the lawn. We found out at this point that there had been $100 tickets available. Our extra $50 got us closer seats, an area to sit down while we we eating and unlimited champagne that was not available in the bars in the the other areas.



I quickly took advantage of the champagne. What can I say? I love the stuff. At this point we had an interesting chat with a woman and her college aged son who bought her a ticket for her birthday. He was working an internship with Constellation Brands premium wines, beers and spirits.



The stage and sound system were impressive.



I feel bad that I can't remember this kid's name. I believe he just finished his freshman year at the school and had already won some national award.



The first set of music was jazz musicians from the Eastman School. We had seats close to the stage...the first row behind those reserved for family and friends. Here's me enjoying the music On Cranberry Pond.



the audience behind us



I wanted to see inside this house so much. I could see that it was beautiful inside when I peeked in the windows. It was off limits to the general public.




one of several open bars set up around the house

All the wine and champagne was donated by Three Brothers Winery. All the beer and water and food was donated by Wegmans. The tents and chairs were also donated.



After the first set of music we broke for dinner. This is the food line.



My delish Wegmans dinner....Frenched chicken, pesto pasta with grape tomatoes, zucchini and yellow squash, Spanish rice with black beans and green olives and Caesar salad.



The second set of music featured Everette Harp, a smooth jazz sounding saxophonist.



This is David Belasco on the right and what do you think?......maybe a son or nephew on the left.



After the second set of music, cake and cookies were served. The cake was decorated like the house on the pond. I think I got a little of the grass or seaweed on my piece. Then thank yous to all the musicians and businesses that had donated. David talked about how he wished they had Wegmans in California. How everyone he meets anywhere....if they were originally from the WNY area.....misses Wegmans. One of the musicians said he had written a song about it and performed Waiting, Waiting on Wegmans to Expand to the tune of Waiting, Waiting on the World to Change by John Mayer. It drew much applause.



And then the last set of music. Philip Bailey....the lead singer for Earth Wind and Fire. He performed eight or ten of their hits accompanied by his very own son, Everette Harp and the Eastman students. They sounded exactly like Earth Wind and Fire. Philip seemed a little surprised and very impressed by the quality of the musicians. He remarked that he had the A Team playing with him. Some of my favorites they performed were September, Shining Star, The Twelveth of Never, After the Love Has Gone. Got to Get You Into My Life, Boogie Wonderland and Nature Boy.

After his performance the scholarship check was presented and fireworks filled the air. I left happy and fulfilled. I had had an experience and been a tiny part of making a difference.