Ok Enough puns on fingers.... LOL
This morning (Monday) we met our neighbor, Bob. He seemed a little quirky but a nice guy. He has a TREK and he explained that there is no bedroom, but there is a “Murphy bed” in the ceiling. It’s a sharp looking unit, but I’m not sure if I would like the layout with no slides. He told us about an interesting winery on Keuka Lake on the other side of Watkins Glen. We had yet to investigate downtown Ithaca so it didn’t take much to convince us to stay another night in the area. After video calls to both Dad and the granddaughters (really digging this technology!!) we were off on another exploration.
The Commons in Ithaca was a little disappointing. There were a few nice craft and organic baby shops, but a lot of empty spaces too. I think it might have more “vibe” on the weekend. Hopefully most of the students were in class on a Monday morning. Several of the glass and craft shops featured bongs and hemp, a definite nod to the college community. We ate lunch at the Moosewood Restaurant which is a fairly iconic place. Their cookbook introduced me to the concepts of local food and vegetarianism in the 70’s. Dave’s comment was… “You go to rib places with me… I guess I can try it.” The spices in the stew and salad were really interesting, but it wasn’t terrific. I think Dave went away hungry… lol
We headed to Bully Hill Wines. It was started by Greyton Taylor after he sold Taylor Wines to a conglomerate. He didn’t like that the new Taylor was using sugar and additives. He wanted to call it Greyton Taylor Wines, but then got sued by his old company. It had a playful “gotcha” nature about it and had a wine museum, art gallery and good cheap wines. They all need food, but are “drinkable”… Great labels! We then looked hard and found a winery that advertized champagne. Boy, was it a bust! They were out of their Brut, but served the tasting in plastic throw away juice cups! We knew immediately we were not going to find or even know if their wines were any good. Glen you’ve definitely made us into glass snobs!!
The find of the day was Finger Lakes Beer Company. It is a microbrewery and only sells their wine in growlers so we could not take any home with us, but they were all very good. The owner gave Dave the grand tour and Dave was impressed with his 7 barrel (200 gal.) system.. He had bought it from a group going out of business in Walwala WA and Dave thought it was the right size and set up for a startup company. He later went out on the internet and found similar systems for $69K uninstalled. Go stock market!!!
After the Moosewood Café, we were hungry by mid afternoon. Across the street from the brewery was a seafood hut that advertized “calabash” shrimp. We decided to stop for a snack hoping for some popcorn shrimp. We asked the proprietors what they meant by “calabash” and they said “fried”. The shrimp were actually very good. Very lightly breaded and not overcooked. Thought they were not the heaping pile of popcorn shrimp we were used to!! $14 for about a little more than a dozen shrimp. We “fessed up” to being from NC (like they couldn’t tell!), and told them the story of hush puppies. I’m sure it will be repeated now and embellished throughout the region!! The irony is when I go to Calabash, I usually ask for “broiled”. LOL
Back at the campsite we were invited to join Bob and his wife and some friends who had come in while we were out from Ontario. They were all going to near Brownsville TX to winter over. Bob’s wife had now joined him and to put it politely, she was a real b**ch. She was abrasive and prejudiced. Like Abbie, I had been hungry to “talk to peoples”, but this I could do without! The great thing about RV’ing is you can excuse yourself… and you move on in the morning!! I did feel a little sorry for poor Bob. He was definitely ready to have his friend Claire around and I could understand why! Will post pix from 1000 Islands
On to 1000 Islands!... Stay tuned…..
