They say home is where the heart is. If that’s true my home is in the Finger Lakes.
The Finger Lakes are a series of eleven long, stringy lakes carved out by glaciers 2 million years ago in the middle of what is now Upstate New York. The area is made up of nine counties that stretch from lake Ontario in the north, to the Pennsylvania border in the south. This means when I say “my home is in the Finger Lakes” that’s kind of vague, so let me pinpoint it for you. In the middle of the group of lakes, there is one shaped like a Salvador Dali-esque melted “y”. To the right of that is one that looks like a starving leech.
Between these two is home.
It’s where my parents moved the year I started college, it’s where my mom grew up, where my grandparents farm sits, where I met my husband nearly a decade ago, and where we got married.
It’s where I got my first job after college, working at a winery called Dr. Frank’s. A job that to this day has been my favorite one. It’s where I fell in love with gardening, hiking, and kayaking. Where I’ve spent the summers of my life. It’s a place of camp fires, wineries, summer farm stands overflowing with zucchini, and starry night skies.
If you haven’t been, start with Watkins Glen. It’s on the southern end of the “starving leech”, also known as Seneca Lake. Hike the Falls Trail at Watkins Glen State Park.
Get honey ice cream from Colonial Pottery & Creamery and admire their live bees. Eat your ice cream in one of their Adirondack chairs on the front porch, preferably on a hot summer July night after a thunderstorm.
Take North Franklin Street down to Seneca Harbor and walk to the red painted pier and out over the rock pilings.
Drive up either side of the skinny lake and stop at every winery you come to. Try all of their Rieslings and buy the best ones. On a cloudless night, go outside, look up.
I dare you not to love this place too.