Lauren and Dan's Visit

I don't think Lauren and Dan knew how much we were looking forward to their visit. We had a full weekend planned for them, from the hiking at Watkins Glen to the food and drinks we were having for dinner.

We started them off right, with one of Lois' Dream Dinners (peach marmalade pork) and a shot of tequila! It's become one of our customs that a weekend of fun start off with the guests' drink of choice...

Saturday morning after breakfast we drove them down to Watkins Glen State Park. It follows a beautiful stream with 19 waterfalls and over 800 stone steps that wind their way through a glacial gorge that is at points over 200 feet deep.

We then proceeded to hit up 5 wineries, where we tasted a variety of house wines, on the western shore of Seneca Lake. We stopped for lunch that we had brought, as well as afternoon relaxing on a dock along the shore. The finger lakes are north-south lakes with rolling hills between them, almost entirely covered with vineyards and cornfields. With the exception of the corn, we could have been in the south of France.

After an early evening nap, we took them out to our local tex-mex place, Alto Cinco, for really good food. A movie afterwards, and we had ourselves a full day...

They had to leave early-ish Sunday, so they missed the arts and crafts festival of downtown Syracuse, which Cait and I hit up. If we don't make the effort to go down there, we'll go for weeks without doing so, but I always forgot how beautiful the historic buildings are downtown. Some of them are from the early 19th century, made of gorgeous stone and brick. The festival itself had over 175 vendors, some of which were truly talents artists: painters, sculptors, woodworkers, and photographers, among many others were all set up in the historic district.