Category: Travel Page 41 of 55
Cadillac Mountain Panorama
Looking back on this trip, and I have to think that this was one of the best trips in my recent memory. We visited three places that I have wanted to visit for years. We visited three places that I want to return to. There is so much history in Boston. There is no way to see it all in a day. Acadia National Park is giant and I feel like we only scratched the surface. Watkins Glen is one of the most breathtaking places I have ever seen. I would love to see it in the fall. All three of the stops on this trip will have to be revisited later.
Soldiers & Sailors Monument
Boston Highlights: Honestly, the best thing about our time in Boston was dinner at a trendy, Mexican restaurant called Lolita Cantina that was unlike anything we have at home. The meal started with a complimentary granita with a splash of tequila and ended with cotton candy and temporary tattoos. I often wondered if I was cool enough to eat there. I was worried they were going to throw me out. For me the biggest thing about Boston was just being in this historic city. Boston played a huge part in the early part of our country and there are many sites to see. Walking the freedom trail and knowing all that happened there was unreal.
Acadia Highlights: My favorite part of Acadia was probably the sweeping vistas along the Park Loop Road. I’ve thought about that a lot since I’ve been back home. When work gets tough, I can go back to Cadillac Mountain and hear the rush of the water and smell the salt air. Its not a matter of if I will get back there but a when. And it needs to be for longer. And maybe not in August. Lunch at The Jordan Pond House was good too. Eating a lobster roll and looking out over Jordan Pond is not something you can do anywhere else.
Watkins Glen Gorge Trail
Watkins Glen Highlights: Obviously, Corning Museum of Glass was great and I want to go back and create some more glass. But, the gorge trail at Watkins Glen State Park was unlike anything I had seen before. As beautiful as Acadia was, Watkins Glen was more photogenic. The beauty was more compact. Every turn was more beautiful than the one before. I had expected beauty and was blown away.
As I kind of mentioned about Boston, one of the best things about this trip was the food. We utilized TripAdvisor’s Cheap Eats a lot and got to try off the beaten path places that were surprisingly good! We had Asian Fusion is Corning, Gyros in New Hampshire, and poutine in Boston. Probably one of the best was a little Italian Place in Lexington (Massachusetts) called Marios that had unlimited bread and ridiculous portions of very good pasta. We were able to get out of there for less than $25 for two people. It was insane. We wouldn’t have found it without TripAdvisor.
Thank you for stopping by and for following along with this trip! To read more about our East Coast Adventure, click the link to get to our itinerary. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
After leaving the Corning Museum of Glass, we made a quick stop at the Rockwell Museum. Corning’s Rockwell Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate with a focus on American Art. Housed in the old Corning City Hall, the collection was a gift of Bob and Hertha Rockwell. Its a small museum and didn’t take long to see the whole collection. If you have extra time in the Finger Lakes or you’re looking for something to do on a rainy day, The Rockwell Museum wouldn’t be a bad choice.
At the museum, I grabbed a guide for the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, so we headed back north to check it out. The Finger Lakes was just voted the best wine region by 10best.com and being in the area, I was looking forward to seeing what the big deal is. With over 30 wineries on the trail, it is much bigger than the Michigan wine trails. Obviously, we couldn’t visit all of them in one afternoon, so we stuck to the ones closest to Watkins Glen.
We visited Catharine Valley (above), J.R. Dill, and Atwater Estates. Located on the shore of Seneca Lake, all of the wineries had beautiful views. Much like in Michigan, Riesling is the king in Seneca Lake and our favorite was a forced carbonated Riesling from Atwater Estates. It was unlike anything I’ve ever had before. Doing a winery tour was a relaxing way to end our final day of this trip and a way to bring back the perfect Finger Lakes souvenir.
Thanks for stopping by! To plan your visit to the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, visit SenecaLakeWine.com.If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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We began our first full day in the Finger Lakes area with a plan. We would get up early and head to the Corning Museum of Glass. I have to thank Doug Parker of Cruise Radio for first turning me on to this museum and it has been on my list to visit for years now. If you’ve never heard of the Corning Museum of Glass, let me give you a brief run down of what they have to offer: unique, glass sculptures, a large exhibit on the history of glass (it may not sound exciting, but it really is interesting), glass blowing demonstrations, and a make your own glass experience.
Pendants We Made
I was most looking forward to making my own glass. I have watched the glass blowers at Greenfield Village for years, and I’ve always wanted to give it a try. So, we looked online the day before and all the glass blowing was already booked up for the day. Instead, we booked flame working and Chris and I both made a pendant. I am so glad we did that! It was a great experience to use a hot torch and melt the glass together and form it into a tear drop (right). While we were waiting, we got to watch people doing the glassblowing and they were literally only
Chris’ Etched Glass
doing the blowing. A worker was the one putting the glass in the kiln and molding it to shape. Knowing that, I am so glad we chose the flame working instead. Getting to actually create something with your own hands is a really good feeling! After we did that, we actually went back and tried our hand at the sand blasting, which is something anyone, any age can do. We were given a glass (I chose a bowl. Chris did a glass) and were given tape and stickers to cover it. Then, you put it in a sand blasting machine and any area that isn’t covered got etched. Chris’ glass turned out really cool (left)!
If you are in the Finger Lakes, you HAVE to stop at the Corning Museum of Glass! The exhibits are interesting. The demonstrations are unique. There are not many places these days where you can get to see glass blowing. If you are visiting, definitely budget time and a little extra money to create something. If you don’t get to do glass blowing, don’t feel bad, there are a ton of other ways that you can create a unique memento of your trip and get a conversation piece out of it!
To plan your visit to the Corning Museum of Glass, visit CMOG.org. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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Watkins Glen State Park has been on my bucket list since I first saw a picture of it when I first got on Flickr, about ten years ago. A picture very similar to the one on the left inspired my wanderlust. Looking at this picture, I would assume this was Costa Rica, or Hawaii, but no, this amazing glen of water and rock is actually in western New York. When I discovered this beautiful place is less than 8 hours away, I began planning a long weekend to explore it. Finally, the time came when it made sense to visit.
After visiting several Maine lighthouses, we made our way to Keane, New Hampshire for the night. I didn’t have much planned on the way from New Hampshire to Watkins Glen, but we did stop at the Albany Museum of Art and History to get out of the car and stretch our legs. Before long, we arrived at Watkins Glen and set up camp.
In the summer, the park offers shuttles from the Main Entrance to the upper entrance of the park. This allows you to hike down the 1 1/2 mile Gorge trail instead of having to go up 800 steps. This made of a pretty leisurely, hike. It is definitely one of the most scenic of my life. If we had more time to explore, it would have been nice to hike some of the other trails in the park and get a different view of the gorge. As it was, I’m sure we got to see the best part.
From the moment we left the parking lot, I knew this was going to be like no other place I had ever seen. It seemed like every few feet there were beautiful stone bridges high above cascading falls. It reminded me a lot of Hocking Hills, but much more compact. The whole time I was amazed at the beauty, only to go down a few more steps, make a turn and get an even more breathtaking view.
While the top photo is the most iconic one of the park, the whole Gorge Trail blew my mind. I have never seen such a beautiful place. I have a really hard time reconciling it with New York state. This is not what I think when I think of New York. I’ve been told that some of the other parks in the Finger Lakes are just as beautiful. I will have to go back sometime to see for myself.
To plan your visit to Watkins Glen, visit parks.ny.gov. Be sure to come back next week when we visit the Corning Museum of Glass. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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After packing up camp, we decided to take Route 1 instead of the interstate so we could stop and see some Maine Lighthouses on our way south. The dense fog from the night before was still thick which made for interesting photos.
Our first stop was Fort Point Light (left). Fort Point Lighthouse is located in Fort Point State Park in Stockton Springs, Maine on the easternmost tip of Cape Jellison, a peninsula that juts into the Penobscot Bay. The ruins of Fort Pownall (a British fort built during the French and Indian War) are also in the park. The lighthouse wasn’t open when we visited, so we just got out, stretched our legs and took a picture before continuing our journey down the coast (wiki).
Rockland Breakwater Light in the fog
Our next stop was the Rockland Breakwater Light. The breakwater is .8 miles long and the heat was still out of control so we chose not to hike to this lighthouse. I put on the telephoto lens and shot this (right) from the entrance to the breakwater. The fog made it kind of tricky to shoot, but with some Lightroom magic, I think I was able to make a decent shot out of it.
Our next stop on this lighthouse tour was the Maine Lighthouse Museum. Housed in the Rockland Chamber of Commerce, this small museum is home to a lot of U.S. Coast Guard and lighthouse memorbilia, some of which had Michigan connections. It is an inexpensive museum and is worth a visit if you are in the Rockland area. In the gift shop, I picked up a Lighthouse Passport so I can now collect stamps for each ligthhouse I visit.
Our final lighthouse in Maine was the Owl Head Light (top). The current lighthouse was built in 1852 and is a 30 foot tall round brick tower standing on top of a cliff. Here I got my first stamp in my passport book and we had a picnic lunch before continuing on our way to New Hampshire for the night. Check back next week as we make our way to Watkins Glen, New York!
Thanks for stopping by! For more information about the Maine Lighthouse Museum, visit MaineLighthouseMuseum.org. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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You’ve seen the iconic photos of this lighthouse, right? Gorgeous sunset over the water and the lighthouse atop the rocks? They’re really something. I desperately wanted to get one of those pictures this trip!
As you can see from the above picture, I didn’t get the beautiful sunset I was dreaming of. First, I wasn’t prepared for how early the sun sets in eastern Maine. In Michigan, we’re lucky in that the sun stays up until 9:00 in the summer. In Maine, the sun sets more than an hour earlier. We were getting ready to make dinner and the sun was going down. It was like the opposite of camping at McLain State Park in the Keewenaw, where the sun didn’t set until almost 10. The other thing that made it difficult was the fog. Every evening we spent at Acadia was foggy or rainy. This is not a complaint, just a statement of fact. I was actually OK with it because it took the pressure off getting the perfect sunset photo.
Set the weather aside for a second. Because of the iconic nature of this lighthouse, everyone wants a photo of it. Photographers were lined up all over the rocks near the lighthouse. Here’s the kicker, they weren’t just taking a photo and heading on their merry way. Nope, they had their tripods set up and they were not budging until the sun was past the horizon. Chris is more daring than I and he weaved in between them to get this shot. It was not worth it to me. Honestly, I was disgusted with my fellow photographers over this. I could not believe the photographers looking out at the sea of other photographers, shrugging their shoulders and saying “well, I got here first”. Craziness. Especially because it wasn’t even that great of a sky that day.
So, you are going to be at Acadia and you want to try to get this shot. Here’s my advice for you. Avoid summer. If you want to visit Acadia at all, avoid the busy season. The crowds are ridiculous. Late spring and early fall are supposed to be much better. And in fall you get the colors. I will have to make it to Acadia sometime in the fall. If you want the place to yourself, go in the winter. It never hurts to be the person staking out a spot. Try to get to the lighthouse early, just don’t be rude about it.
Thanks for stopping by! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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