Seneca Lake

Seneca Lake stands as the largest among the glacial Finger Lakes within the state of New York. Renowned for its substantial size and depth, it remains entirely contained within the state’s borders. The lake has earned distinction as the preeminent locale for lake trout angling, exemplified by its role as the host of the esteemed National Lake Trout Derby. Positioned at the northern terminus of Seneca Lake, the city of Geneva, New York, commands attention, serving as the domicile for Hobart and William Smith Colleges, along with housing the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, a constituent entity of Cornell University. Conversely, the village of Watkins Glen, situated at the southern extremity of the lake, boasts a notable reputation due to its association with motorsport, primarily due to the presence of Watkins Glen International racetrack, as well as its picturesque cascades.

Seneca Lake possesses an uncommon macroclimate that has bestowed it with the distinction of nurturing over 50 wineries, predominantly characterized as farm wineries. Its geographical attributes have led to the designation of the Seneca Lake American Viticultural Area (AVA), solidifying its reputation within oenophilic circles.

In terms of dimensions, Seneca Lake stretches across a length of approximately 38 miles, securing its position as the second longest Finger Lake. Remarkably voluminous, it is estimated to contain an impressive 3.81 cubic miles (15.9 km³) of water, accounting for nearly half of the cumulative water volume across all the Finger Lakes. The lake’s profundity is notable, averaging 291 feet, while plunging to a maximum depth of 618 feet. The expansive water body covers a surface area of approximately 66.9 square miles (173 km²).

Watched both the sunset on July and the sunrise into August

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Honest, I’m trying to do better on the sleep thing. I was asleep by 10 pm last night, after I drove home from Cayuga Lake in Ithaca it was straight to bed. Plus I wanted to get started early today, as I plan to head to Dresden then bike to Penn Yann on the Kueka Outlet Rail Trail, poke around Penn Yann for a while. Then maybe Sugar Hill then Watkins Glen pool. Like if I have time, lol. Or whatever hits my fancy, I will need to get a few groceries later.

Good morning! Happy Tuesday. 🌄 Mostly sunny and 53 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. There is a west-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 53 degrees. Fog 🌫 over Seneca Lake I can see from the backbone.

Decided to set my alarm ⏰ to catch the sunrise but by the time I made it to Searsburg Road I saw the sun had partially beat me. Regardless I got close to eight 8⃣ hours of solid sleep 😴 last night and the sun was just starting over the horizon. Still a good early start to the morning. Lots of coffee ☕ this morning plus cream of wheat with chea seeds for added fiber 🌱, some lemon 🍋 and stevia for sweetness plus walnuts and non fat Greek yogurt. Yum.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 69 degrees at 4pm. 15 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 28th. Maximum dew point of 54 at 8am. Light and variable wind becoming north 5 to 7 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 89 degrees. The record high of 101 was set in 1933. Not this year, lol. 😂

How fast time comes and goes on vacation but there is much more to do. Dresden – Penn Yann today ⛵ and then maybe kayaking 🛶 and fishing 🎣 on Seneca Lake tomorrow, paddling up to Hector Point as it’s expected to be calm. Swimming in Cayuga Lake Thursday I’m thinking 💭 as it will be warmer, maybe the Black Diamond Trail from Ithaca to the Taughannock Gorge. Maybe get clams tonight. 🦪 I concede probably best just to wait for my Labor Day Weekend trip or a Piseco-Powley long weekend trip for the clams but you know what’s on my mind.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:14 pm with sun having an altitude of 65.5° from the due south horizon (-5.2° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:49 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (289°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (296°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:29 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 12 seconds with dusk around 8:59 pm, which is one minute and 9 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the east-southeast (120°) at an altitude of 0° from the horizon, 226,453 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:41 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 61 degrees. The dew point will be 50 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 31 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 11 seconds over yesterday.

Busy day yesterday, 🚲 starting at Stewart Park 🏞 heading up to Ithaca Falls and spending the bulk of the day exploring the gorge through the historic Forest Home 🏡 and Beebe Pond 🦆 and then ultimately spending many hours in the Cornell Botanical Gardens. Hell of it is I ended up riding past the dairy bar and it was still open 🥤 but I didn’t realize until I was past it. The ride down Buffalo Street 🐃 in Ithaca was a blast, my bike rotators were so hot from the braking. University 🎓 Ave over Canachilla Creek didn’t offer much in views but riding along the Cayuga Waterfront Trail from NY 96 to the end at other end of Stewart Park was nice. Those suspension bridges 🌉 the trail crosses are neat, and the size of the Ithaca Farmers market building is impressive. I wonder when they are open, I could stop by and stock up. And the sunset 🌇 was great.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 51 degrees at 6am. 11 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 19th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 6pm. Light and variable wind becoming south around 6 mph after midnight. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies. It became sticky as the night progressed. It got down to 70 degrees. The record low of 45 occurred back in 1976.

Cool this weekend with temperatures running 10 degrees below normal but otherwise sunny. 😃 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 71. Maximum dew point of 58 at 11am. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 75. Maximum dew point of 60 at 4pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 83 degrees. Very low humidity and sunny. Should be a great weekend once we get past the ☔ rain and clouds on Friday.

One month 📅 from now will be September 🍁 when the sun will be setting at 7:43 pm with dusk at 8:11 pm. About fifteenth minutes later then Albany. Enjoy summer before it’s gone as Labor Day will be a memory by then and the kiddos 🧒 back to school 🚸.

Paddling Past Ducks

After a cloudy start the sun is out ⛅ 👉 ☀

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Starting to finally get nice out this morning. Going to be a beautiful day.

Good morning! Happy Sunday from Vacationland 2023. Partly sunny and 60 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. There is a north-northwest breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 57 degrees. Much cooler than before the front came through.

Woke up pretty early this morning, thinking that it would be a nice morning 🌅 and I could get up, use the bucket shitter 🚽 and they have coffee ☕. I even thought 💭 about taking a ride over to Searsburg Road and watching the sun rise. They promised it would be a beautiful day, and it probably will be but it didn’t clear out by nine o’clock last night as promised by the weathermen. ☁️ I looked to the sky this morning and all I saw was clouds. Maybe I should have pooped 💩 and gone back to bed but instead it was apple banana pancakes 🥞 using the remainder of the pancake mix I bought last winter mixed with whole oatmeal, fried apples and mashed bananas. Through
In chia seeds 🌱 for an extra health punch 👊.

Going forward I won’t buy any more pancake mix but instead use that whole grain oatmeal with water and bananas. 🥞 I like the hardy more fiber rich oatmeal over the bleached flour, sugar and chemicals of Aunt Jamina’s pancake mix. Less garbage and cost too by using just simple oatmeal and bananas. Really don’t need to waste money 💵 on packaging to burn. Likewise I’m using real silverware and dishes now while camping as paper plates, and plastic silverware have gotten so expensive with inflation plus who wants to burn all that toxic plastic trash? 🗑

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 71 degrees at 3pm. 13 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 24th. Maximum dew point of 57 at 8am. Northwest wind around 9 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 82 degrees. The record high of 100 was set in 1933. Cool but getting sunny for sure.

Today I have a busy agenda planned. 📜 But it’s going to be a great one. I plan to get a fairly early start, bike most of the Cayuta Valley Rail Trail. 🚲 Then swim at the Watkins Glen Pool, get ice cream at Glen Dairy Bar 🍦, ride along Rock Cabin Road, watch the sunset 🌇 on Seneca Lake. Then back to camp for some hammock time before bed. Greased my chain 🔗 up well on my bike this morning, cleaned off the mud, and set up the GoPro mount on my bike 📸 so I can do some video today riding for the blog and YouTube and other social media. 📹

Despite a fairly soggy day yesterday, 🌧️ I’ve been feeling great without the alcohol and calories 🤰 of years past, choosing healthier nutrient dense meals 🍴 and whole fruits and vegetables 🫑up here at camp. ⛺ A healthy diet I believe really does improve ones mental health. ☺ While I’m not one to blame the chemicals in processed foods – most of them are relative safe, 🧪⚗️ most of them mask crap ingredients that are rich in low quality fats and sugars while providing not much vitamins, fiber or protein. Plus being skinner I feel great though I certainly have been stuffing myself this weekend 🍑 but with higher quality whole foods.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:14 pm with sun having an altitude of 66° from the due south horizon (-4.7° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:51 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (290°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (297°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:31 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 14 seconds with dusk around 9:02 pm, which is one minute and 5 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the southeast (146°) at an altitude of 11° from the horizon, 228,672 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:43 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 64 degrees. The dew point will be 53 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 35 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 6 seconds over yesterday.

Yesterday became a wet day, though later then expected. Rochester got the rain early, we got it later in the Finger Lakes. 🌧️ Breakfast was eggs with tomatoes, onions and peppers with a side of old breakfast sausage I bought last winter. Rode Blackie 🚵 to the top of Hector Backbone though I admit I dismounted and pushed the bicycle part of the way. I had lower gears ⚙ to drop it down to but I wasn’t feeling motivated. At the top by Blueberry Hill Campground 🫐 it started to rain – it was already one o’clock before that happened. More of a passing shower, waited waited it out under a tree. 🌳 Rode around the campground, the fee is now up to $15 a night though I can’t imagine camping so packed in with others. I like my fires 🔥 and music 🎶, I would be a nuisance if I had to camp around others. 🤫

Tried to get good cell service up there 📶 without much luck. A few bars but it was slow, possibly due to the weather. ⛈ Rode down the backbone to Potomac Road, much more fun going down then over to Potomac Ponds which I started back, started slinging mud 🐽 and decided to turn back when the trail got too muddy. I rode down old Chicken Co-op Road as my GPS calls it 🗺 and the sky just opened up. ⛈️ I wanted to see my favorite old campsite and see how the mud wallow was holding up after all the stone I dumped in it last year. Still quite muddy. Glad I got the site I like on Potomac instead. I headed back to camp, I didn’t mind being soaked as it was still quite warm. 🧅 Fried up another delicious 😋 Vadella onion on the griddle – sliced it into rings, put it on a cast iron skillet and added a little MSG to really make it pop. Dessert was red kidney beans with some maple syrup 🍁 and a beer 🍻. Had two beers yesterday between lunch and dinner which is my limit though the first day I had one and maybe none today.

As the front came through the rain picked up and the temperature dropped. 🌡️ I read for a while 📖 and listened to a podcast 📻 from Focus on Albany with Cynthia Pooler interviewing Leon Van Dyke. Interesting history about how the Democratic 🐴 machine worked and the $5 votes 🗳 and the fear people had about ever speaking up about the machine. Found out John Wolcott is returning home Monday for hospice care, 🧑‍⚕️ but he’s still pretty much in his final hours, hope to visit him at least one more time when I get back from vacation. Had some great interviews with John Wolcott and Leon Van Dyke over the years though I wish we had started years earlier 🎤 before John lost much of his memory and became so frail after getting bit by a tick and collapsing one day in his bathtub 🛁. Tick born illnesses are no joke. 🐜

After a while with the wind and the rain ☔ I started to get chilled through at camp and decided I needed to take off my wet clothes. 👚 I got jeans and a hoodie on, bedded down in my truck with the remainder of the Boggleheads investing book 📙 which I finally finished off before putting on a different podcast about the history of Mad Magazine before nodding off. 🤡 Got some shut eye 👁️ for a few hours before dinner time.

Dinner was more salmon 🐠 with delicious pearl onions, mini red potato 🥔 , sweet corn and fried slices of tomato 🍅 – the second half of the big juicy one I got at the farm stand. I still have a full tomato left, it’s like heaven. Eating good. Rode up to Searsburg Road 🚲 hoping to catch the sunset but it was still gray last night but I do have good reception 📶 there. Maybe tonight though I think I’ll watch the sunset tonight from Seneca Lake 🌇. Decided I wanted to get some more miles in before bed 🛏 after a fairly lazy day 😴 so around dusk started over to Foster Pond on the bicycle but turned back as drizzle started. 🔙 Had a small campfire 🔥 at warm myself and retired to bed around ten 🔟. Early by vacation standards when it’s not really dark out until around nine.

Tonight will have increasing clouds ☁, with a low of 56 degrees at 5am. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 6th. Maximum dew point of 54 at 6pm. Northwest wind around 6 mph becoming southwest in the evening. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 60 degrees. The record low of 49 occurred back in 2021.

One month 📅 from now will the Average High Falls To 79 ️Degrees ⛱️️️ when the sun will be setting at 7:47 pm with dusk at 8:14 pm. As they say, all good things must come to an end, autumn leaves must fall. But first, summer vacation! 🏖

Mud Lock In Cayuga Lake

Day 2 of summer vacation waiting for the front to come through ⛈️

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Just taking it slow and easy, it’s summer vacation and it’s a hang out in the National Forest kind of day with rain and thunderstorms almost certain come midday.

Good morning! No rain yet but a fair amount of clouds, muggy. I’d call it times of clouds and sun about 75 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. ⛅ More sun would be nice to charge the solar. 🔋 There is a west breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 69 degrees. Muggy but relief coming with the front this afternoon. The skies will clear around 9 pm.

Been having fun, so far a great vacation, very relaxing. 😁 Got the campsite I wanted, I have so many good healthy foods to eat. 🍏 went for a ride over to Teeter Pond 🚲 and the Horton Pasture hoping to catch a nice sunset 🌇 though it turned out to be grayer than I had hoped with a lot of clouds but listening to the bull frogs 🐸 and cows mooing as dusk approached was nice. Rode back to camp, laid in the hammock for a bit. The brighter light from my headlamp I mounted on my bike works decent, better than the bike light I have. Then around 9:30 decided to ride over to Foster Pond though it was buggy and cloudy when I got there so I didn’t stay long except to watch the froggers 🐸 out in the edge of the pond looking for some frog legs to cook up for dinner. Headlights on that dark road though from oncoming vehicles were quite blinding I must admit!

Today will have showers and thunderstorms before 4pm, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 4pm and 5pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. 🌦 High of 74 degrees at 11am. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 11th. Maximum dew point of 71 at 1pm. 🏖️ Northwest wind 7 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. An improvement over yesterday’s forecast but will be wet. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 89 degrees. The reI aglsotvycord high of 97 was set in 1894.

I plan to get firewood under the tarp before the rain 🌧️. It’s only a matter of time before the rain comes. I actually was expecting a wetter morning then turned out to be, as I put away the hammock last night and anything that I didn’t want to get wet as I’m so used to Albany where a threat of rain always turns out to be a certainty for rain but maybe not so much in the Finger Lakes. Only time will tell. Midday hopefully before the rain, want to ride over to Foster Pond and then up to the top of Hector Backbone 🚵 for the views and to get podcasts to listen to this evening back at camp. 📻 Then probably read in the afternoon, cook up onions and more salmon for dinner. 🐠 Thinking beans with maple 🍁 syrup for a light lunch.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:14 pm with sun having an altitude of 66.2° from the due south horizon (-4.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:52 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (290°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (297°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:32 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 14 seconds with dusk around 9:03 pm, which is one minute and 4 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the south-southeast (159°) at an altitude of 16° from the horizon, 230,641 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:45 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 65.

Hoping it will clear out this evening for a nice Finger Lakes sunset 🌇 and it will be starry ✨ and clear to sit down at Foster Pond watching shooting stars. Probably though will be cold and damp though I expect the humidity to drop after the front comes through.

Tonight will have a chance of showers before 8pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 58 degrees at 5am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around August 30th. Maximum dew point of 64 at 6pm. Northwest wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2022, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 64 degrees. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1968.

Tomorrow and the next four days should be beautiful ☀ and I plan to make the most of them. Tomorrow get a fairly early start, bike most of the Cayuta Valley Rail Trail. 🚲 Then swim at the Watkins Glen Pool, get ice cream at Glen Dairy Bar 🍦, ride along Rock Cabin Road, watch the sunset 🌇 on Seneca Lake. Monday I’m thinking of exploring the gorge at Cornell University and Ithaca bicycle trails and maybe swim 🏊‍♂️ at Taughannock before heading back to camp. ⛺ Tuesday either paddle Seneca Lake and float in the tube there or maybe head up to Penn Yann – Dresden for the Keuka Valley Trail and ice cream at the Spotted Duck 🦆. Then take it from there.

Looking ahead, next Saturday is Work Like a Dog Day 🐩 when the sun will be setting at 8:24 pm with dusk at 8:54 pm. On that day in 2022, we had hot, humid, partly sunny, patches of fog and temperatures between 93 and 71 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 83 degrees. I guess if swimming and bicycling is working like a dog I’ll be doing that on my final evening of vacation. We hit a record high of 99 back in 1955.

Sunset