Family and Food

At Ithaca Falls

Monday/Tuesday, Sept. 3-4, 2018

We had a really nice visit with Ed, and the more "extended" family. On Monday morning, we drove into Ithaca to visit with Ed's daughter Elisha, her husband Theo, and their two boys, one of whom we met for the first time. He is only about 3 months old, and definitely cute! We also got to catch up with Elisha's mother, Lisa, and her husband, who were also visiting. We were good friends with Lisa in high school, but we've only seen her at family simchas (bat mitzvahs and weddings) for the past few decades, so it was nice to see her with a chance to just chat. It's hard to really "catch up" at a simcha (especially with the mother of the bride!) so we enjoyed seeing her-- usually I have to ask Elisha, "How's your mom?"

After a couple of hours, we left so the kids could maybe take naps, and went to have lunch. Ithaca has a ton of great looking restaurants, but some were not open on Monday. We ended up at Mexithacan for some very tasty Mexican food. It was REALLY hot, and by the time we got into the restaurant, I was melting. So I had a frozen margarita to cool off .

Ed in his garden

From there, we headed back to Ed's, but we stopped of to be tourists for just a few minutes at Ithaca Falls, one of the several wonderful waterfalls in the town. Joe and I had seen Buttermilk Falls when we were here in 2013, but I think we missed this one.

And then we went "home." Joe took a nap, I read my book, and eventually we made some pesto with the basil from Ed's wonderful garden and had dinner on his deck (which had finally cooled down once the sun was going in.)  And that was it for our evening.

This morning (Tuesday) we woke up early. Ed had to leave soon after 7a.m. to go to the Syracuse airport to meet a friend. So Joe and I got going early as well. We had a bit of a time maneuvering ourselves out of Ed's yard-- the driveway wraps around the house. We came in from one side and Ed thought we could drive right out on the other side. But we discovered when we tried it that to get out on that side, we'd have to take a corner of the house with us-- it was just too tight. So we did a "k-turn", in spades! The space was so tight, we went back and forth about a dozen times, one foot at a time, to reverse the RV and go back out the same way we came in.

"Sam" (the RV) between the garden and house-- tight quarters to turn around!

We decided we had one more day for vacation, and by gosh, we'd use it! So we headed for Chenango Valley State Park about 60 miles away. It turned out to be only a short drive further to Binghamton, NY, and a friend had most highly recommended that if we were anywhere nearby, we should go to his family's absolutely favorite restaurant, Little Venice. So we decided to try that for lunch. We drove to the restaurant, and they had thoughtfully left us a big curbside space right in front (otherwise I was concerned about the parking--so it worked perfectly.) Little Venice turned out to be a family owned "institution" in Binghamton since the 1940s, and it was DELICIOUS. Home made pasta cranked out to order, and a secret house sauce. We completely enjoyed our lunch. Ironically, the two restaurant lunches we had, yesterday and today, almost doubled our previous restaurant meals. In 35 days, we've eaten "out" exactly 5 times-- Mexican in Cody, WY, Thai in Lava Hot Springs, ID, Quaker Steak and Lube in Erie, PA, Mexican in Ithaca, and now Italian in Binghamton.

Other than that, the only stop we made today was at a roadside vegetable stand this morning, where we bought some sweet corn, tomatoes, and some fruit. Joe ate an apple right away for a snack, and said it was delicious. We had the corn at dinner, and it was great too! So that was definitely a good stop.

Once we had lunch, we drove back north a few miles to the park, got a nice spot (it is virtually empty here), and both of us took naps! And since then we've been hanging out, reading, blogging, and otherwise relaxing. This is a good way to spend our last day of vacation. Tomorrow, we will have to head back to Highland Park. I hear it is stinking hot. In our RV tonight, thank goodness we have electricity so the AC is going again. If the house is too hot, we may just hook ourselves up at home and stay in the RV. After all, HERE we have CENTRAL air!