Beyond the Looking Glass

Saturday’s adventures along the Southern Tier were wonderful.  We took off around 9 am heading due south through the dairy farmlands of upstate NY along the Genesee River and Lecthworth State Park (“the Grand Canyon of the East’).  At the southern end of the park we headed southeast through the itty bitty village of Short Track to the Maple Tree Inn.  It had grown since I was there 10 years ago.  It really is in the middle of nowhere, but the parking lot was packed with cars from all over the state and Canada.  It smelled like bacon, hotcakes and syrup. They moved people through the little restaurant quite efficiently and we were soon seated in a booth where we were served the most sumptuous buckwheat pancakes and maple syrup in the world.  They keep the cakes coming until you say uncle!

We took a quick tour of the maple sap evaporator in the basement and then headed further south to my friend’s place – even further in the boonies – down a long gravel road and up a steep hill.  Dennis’s golden retriever greeted us at the family cabin, and then we saw the steam coming off the maple sugaring house about 100 yards down a hill.  Found Dennis and his wife boiling sap in their own evaporator…. fired by a lot of wood.  Most of the trees have the sap fed to a tank through plastic hoses, but some of the trees had the maple sap buckets and we helped empty them into the sap tank.  The sun was just coming out and warming up the snow – perfect for spring skiing – so we put on our skis and followed an old logging trail into the woods.  I fell 3 times and had a heck of a time getting up again.  Soon I was exhausted and needed some warm refreshment so we went into the cabin and ate homemade soup, bread and oatmeal cookies.  By then the first real syrup was coming off the system and boy was it tasty!

On the way home we took a detour through the small city of Hornell where my DH had his first apartment after grad school. (He fondly referred to the place as “HornyHell”) There were people dressed in green drinking green beer on the streets.  Then we drove up to Dansville where we lived when we were first married and where my DDs were born.  On a whim we stopped at the home of some old friends and they were home and we caught up.  Their kids and ours played together when they were little.  It was great to re-connect.

All in all a great day!  Yesterday I made corned beef and cabbage and that was good too.  I walked an hour yesterday and hopefully that took care of some of those pancakes.  Weigh-in tonight at TOPs

Filed under: General