Play Day!

After a semi-restful night’s sleep in the Wood Loft, we were up early as the sun came streaming in our double garage door windows. We were just happy it was sunshine and not rain that was streaming in! We dressed without showering (in the spring water shower that shared accommodations with the ‘efficient composting toilet’), gathered up our things, and started trudging down the very muddy path to our car. The party had lasted until about 4:30 AM; needless to say, no one else was stirring. The remains of our steak dinner and all of the wine glasses were still sitting where they had been left the night (morning?) before. Mickey had told us he’d be at the office by 7:00, but breakfast wasn’t until 9:00. We didn’t feel like sticking around that long, so we planned to meet him in the office to settle up. What a shocker that neither he nor anyone else was there at about 7:50…We amused ourselves by getting online and posting yesterday’s message. About 8:15, Bill and Barbara appeared so we paid our bill (our most expensive lodging bill to date by FAR) and left without our “hearty breakfast” – we were afraid it might have been more homemade wine! At lunch time! As we drove down the gravel road in search of the interstate, we laughed about the whole experience, and once we got on the highway, we noticed how normal the woods on either side of the road looked. We will never think those are just woods from now on! You’d be amazed at what is hiding in almost plain sight…











We were on our way to the town of LeRoy and the Jell-O Museum, and we vowed to stop at our first opportunity for breakfast (and a bathroom with a flushing toilet!). Sadly, that didn’t come for quite a while. We stopped in Fillmore and ate a delicious breakfast at Friends and Family Restaurant. Other than the fact that their iced tea tasted more like coffee than tea, the food was tasty! Kim had scrambled eggs and sausage; I had a Scramblemelt, which was eggs scrambled with onions, peppers, and mushrooms and topped with cheese and tomatoes. It was served with home fries (good) and whole wheat toast (which Kim ate). The locals there were very friendly and told us which way they would go to get to LeRoy. They seemed to know we were not from around there. And did I mention our total bill was $6?

It was an uneventful ride to LeRoy, which was a very picturesque little town. We could really tell which towns had been prosperous and which had not… LeRoy surely benefitted from the invention of Jell-O in 1897, and even though the manufacturing plant has been in Dover, Delaware for quite some time now, the town is still capitalizing on it. The Jell-O museum was full of fun facts and great advertising, which has been the secret to Jell-O’s success. We had fun there, and our tour guide, Caroline, was so nice and helpful. Downstairs was a transportation museum, which featured everything from an ox cart to a 1908 Cadillac. It was a great display as well. We enjoyed our jaunt to LeRoy, but we were off in search of our next fun time.












Rochester is probably best known for George Eastman and the Rochester Institute of Technology, but since the Eastman House was closed on Monday, our destination was the Strong National Museum of Play. Boy, did we have fun! It’s home to a carousel made just down the road at the Herschell Carousel company in North Towanda, Dancing Wings, a butterfly house, and the National Toy Hall of Fame. Kids of all ages were having so much fun with the mostly interactive exhibits there. We ate lunch at the Skyliner Diner (there is one in the museum) and had fantastic burgers. It poured down rain while we were at play, so it didn’t bother us at all! We found out later (once we got to our hotel room) that there had been severe weather going on around us - a fierce hail storm and possibly a tornado. We were glad we missed those!












We had no problems leaving Rochester, but we were surprised to cross the Erie Canal. We turned off to see if we could get right near it, and we could by crossing a one-lane steel bottom bridge. Unfortunately, there was a good bit of traffic over that bridge, so we couldn’t get a great photo from the bridge. We also realized we had likely missed our chance to see Lake Ontario…
Our next stop was Ganondagan State Historic Site, which has a replica of a Seneca Longhouse. We were sadly surprised to see that the park was closed on Mondays, so we couldn’t go inside the longhouse. We were able to walk down to it, so we walked off a bite or two of our burgers. It was our second walk of the day, since we had had to hike our way out of Pollywogg Holler.













By this time, we were pretty worn out and it was almost five, so we just headed for our Hampton (I can’t tell you how excited we are to be staying in a Hampton!!!) and the beautiful Finger Lakes. After I crashed for an hour and Kim enjoyed a hot shower (our Pollywogg night had caught up with us) we took off walking through the streets of Geneva in search of food. We found it at Parker's Grill and Taproom, where we had a light supper of Harvest Soup and a house salad followed by an ice cream cone on the lake. Yum. We watched the almost full moon rise over the lake and wondered if the fish were biting. We talked to a neat young man with dreads who biked out on the pier where we were having our ice cream. He had a guitar with him and was very friendly. Later on, as we were walking back to the hotel, we passed him again, only this time he was riding his bike while singing and playing the guitar. Now that's talent! We’ve enjoyed watching our first TV since we left home, although we were sad to see how bad the flooding in the midwest is and we were very thankful that it was last year's trip that took us to that part of the country.

All played out,
Jan