The family left Sunday, and we packed up on Monday, Labor Day, to set out toward Ithaca. But, we received a call from Adam before pulling out, inviting us to visit them in Ithaca. They live on 24 acres of woodlands and had an open area around their home where we could park the trailer for a couple of days. This was such a generous offer and we readily accepted! Plus it put us within about 8 miles of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
We arranged to get to their home later in the day. So, we thought we'd go into town for lunch and to walk around. With Ithaca being a college town, there were lots of interesting shops and restaurants. Keep in mind, we were towing the trailer! You probably can guess how this goes!
Street were narrow. Traffic was busy. Workmen were everywhere. We finally hit a detour, but presume we didn't follow it correctly! We ended up at a dead end on the college of law campus, with backing up as the only way out! Students were everywhere and seemed amused by our predicament. Michael, though, has become masterful at moving the trailer around, so he got us back on track.
We bee-lined it out of town and headed toward the countryside where Adam and Kim have their home. Since we still hadn't had lunch, we stopped at a produce stand and loaded up on fresh fruit and vegetables.
After a nice visit with the farmer, we ate some lunch and then made it to Adam and Kim's home. It turned out that we had a great time! The kids were awesome and Jackson, their older son, really was playing the flute I gave him very well. We practiced together and he tried out my other flutes. He's got a great fluting future!
Michael cooked dinner with Kim the first night and did a fish fry our second night. We ate outside, beside a pond. After dinner, we set off fireworks that Michael had collected during our travels. Then we sat out admiring the star-carpeted sky! Overall, we had a fantastic time and felt so appreciative of their warm and comfortable hospitality.
Our visit to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology was like a visit to the moon for an astronaut! For any serious birder, a day at least has to be spent here. There's a building that houses the visitor center, research facilities and seating area where you can sit and bird the bog through a glass wall. (Watched a beautiful green heron fish for supper!). We watched a short video and walked a trail a short ways. It was 1pm and quite hot, so there wasn't much in the way of bird activity.
Inside the visitor center there was an enormous wall mural, beautifully painted, of the evolution of birds. It was fabulous.
In the auditorium, prints of assorted bird nests werected exhibited.
Our visit was great!
Wednesday morning (9/7) we hit the road, reaching Connecticut and Rhode Island over the next couple of days, sleeping at a Walmart and a Cracker Barrel. We reached Cape Cod MA on Saturday the 10th, and it felt like we never left when we saw the welcome sign.
I will write about our visit to the Cape soon!
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