Tooling around the Finger Lakes Region

October 16-18
Geneva and Watkins Glen, New York
Harvest Hosts overnight stays



I had visited the Finger Lakes Region of New York many years ago in my early twenties and it always stood out as a breath of fresh air for what I pictured New York to be like. (At the time, I had been living in Montana.)  When we studied the map for our route to Niagara, I noticed that the Finger Lakes area was close enough to include in the itinerary. I had also recently learned that this area is becoming well-known for it numerous wineries along the lake—making it an even more attractive destination.  Before agreeing to go a little further east in our travels, we made sure the weather looked decent.  The forecast was for daytime highs in the 60s or low 70s with nighttime lows in the 40s—but sunny. We were also happy to be traveling close to peak color time for the autumn show, so off we went.



After spending mucho money in Niagara Falls on our Jeep repairs, a campground, and tours, we were excited to find at good potential overnight sites at Harvest Hosts wineries. If you look at a map of this area, most of the wineries, orchards, and farms you can visit are located on the two largest Finger Lakes: Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake.  We decided to focus our time on Seneca at two different Harvest Host wineries on either side of the lake. (For more information about playing tourist in this area check out the 34 wineries of  the Seneca Lake Wine Trail and 12 artisan cheese makers along the Finger Lakes Cheese Trail.)
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We pulled into our first Harvest Hosts site, Seneca Shores Winery, about 2:00 p.m. with the intention of wine tasting at our host’s place and a couple other wineries after setting up the motorhome in their parking lot.  It turned out they had had a few days of rain before we arrived and the manager at Seneca Shores advised against parking in their typical Harvest Host site, a grass field with a view of the lake—no argument there!  We parked in a large gravel parking lot near this freshly mowed field. The winery is the blue building in the background and the lake is just to the east.Everyone was quite friendly—even though they were busy with harvesting and the crush.  Too bad I didn’t get any photos of the crush.



The Seneca wines were very affordable, but most were way too sweet for our liking.  We bought a couple bottles of their red blend which were more to our liking than their other offerings. This area is better known for its white grapes so we expected to be a little disappointed in the their red wines.

There were at least ten wineries within five miles from our location. Our first stop was a lovely winery called Anthony Road.  We learned their winemaker was from Germany and that the region is best known for its German style wines: Gewurztraminer and Riesling as the climate is quite similar to Germany. I could tell this winemaker really knew what he was doing as the white wines were only subtly sweet and sophisticated tasting. They also had rose wines and reds, but not much was to our liking as they were either very dry or slightly sweet.  We also ended up liking their inexpensive red table wine called Devonian Red the best.
We especially loved these two Alaska Weeping Cedar trees that adorn the entrance to the Anthony Road tasting room.



Next up was our favorite winery in terms of a fun host and lively atmosphere: Fox Run.  Their seemed to know what they were doing with their red wines. This time we branched out and bought a Cab Franc Lemberger blend.

I forgot to take a photo; this one is from their website. The tasting room and wine making facility was converted from a dairy barn in 1993.



From here we decided to drive into the charming town of Geneva on the northwest side of Seneca Lake.  We did a little grocery shopping at Wegman’s—a store reminiscent of Safeway in the NW or Publix in Florida.  I don’t know the history of the name Geneva but the town did remind me of Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. (I have not been to original Geneva in Switzerland.) There were large gracious summer homes along the lake shore and the town is home to a well-known private college: Hobart and William Smith.  By this time we were needing a bite to eat so we asked around and discovered the delightful Uncle Joe’s Italian Eatery housed in a turn of the century home. It was a great way to end our night and begin our introduction to this special area of the country.

Day two in the Finger Lakes, we traveled less than one hour to reach our new destination on the southeast side of Seneca Lake and Chateau Lafayette Reneau winery.  Actually, on our way to our next destination we found a place to park the motorhome and Jeep in tow in the town of Watkins Glen. Our intention was to hike to the falls at  Watkins Glen State Park, but discovered they did not allow dogs.  Our second choice was to do our own urban trail and discover the town and lakeshore with  the dogs on our own. Spending a few hours walking around a town really gives you a flavor of the local color and this experience was no exception.

One of our first discoveries was that Watkins Glen is famous for car racing. They have a track that is now on the Nascar circuit, but the area has a colorful history of being the location of the first Grand Prix in 1948. Consequently, the town has numerous references to this aspect of its fame with murals, souvenir stores, and even actual race cars on display





The north end of town at the south end of the lake turned out to be the best part of our adventure. We walked with the dogs out on a pier and just sat on a bench there for quite a while enjoying a gorgeous fall day and a peaceful view of the lake.











After visiting this lovely town, we headed back to the motorhome and drove about 20 minutes to our next Harvest Host site at Chateau Lafayette Reneau. Their parking situation was great and the winery quite lovely with a deck overlooking the lake that had great potential for sunset viewing.  After setting up here, we made a half hour trip into the largest city on the Finger Lakes: Ithaca, also home of Cornell University.  I wanted Vic to see the town, plus, slightly more importantly, I wanted to take my broken Nikon PS510 to Best Buy as it was not working correctly since the Niagara Falls moisture dampened its inner workings.  I bought an extended contract on the camera, something I rarely do, because I use it on the kayak all the time and it covers water damage.  They decided it had to be sent off for possible repair, but fortunately they were willing to send it to Florida when it is ready in a few weeks.

We drove around the hill where Cornell University is located and had a tasty lunch in a local deli taking in a little bit of the college scene before heading back to do a little more wine tasting on the way. But wait! I saw large signs that seduced us into pulling into the Finger Lakes Distillery.  I didn’t expect to see a distillery in the area although they are getting more popular even in places like Napa. This distillery is probably best known for its vodka made from grapes, but more importantly they also made award winning gin and three types of whiskey: rye, Irish, and bourbon. Let’s just say it was our favorite tasting in the area.

By now we were getting a little weary but I wanted to check out a winery right next to where we were staying that was highly rated by Wine Spectator and other critics: Atwater Estate Vineyards. This tasting room was also an old barn converted into a tasting room. We enjoyed the wine, the knowledgeable staff, and the charming ambiance here. Their reds were the best we tasted in the region, especially their Cab Franc and Syrah.



Chateau Lafayette Reneau, our Harvest Hosts site, was just next door to Atwater’s—good thing after that distillery stop.  We managed to get to their tasting room with just enough time to sample a few and call it a day. Their place is lovely with an amazing view, but their wines seemed to pale in comparison to the previous stop.  Fortunately, Vic liked their Pinot Gris and their Christmas special, a Wassail blend.  Even though the Harvest Hosts dry camping is advertised as “free,” we always make an effort to show our appreciation by making a purchase of something from our hosts.



Sunset looked to be promising, but as dusk arrived the sun disappeared completely behind the cloud cover. We still enjoyed this expansive view of the lake and the pastoral autumn setting.




Our stay on Seneca Lake offered a good two day respite after our trek across the whole country. With the weather forecasts calling for chillier temperatures all along the East Coast, we are feeling pressed to be moving south. If we were here a few weeks earlier, this would be a place we could easily hang out  for a couple weeks. Next destination: Galax, Virginia near the North Carolina border and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The first leg of our journey eastward from Oregon

August 24-September 3, 2013
Astoria to Missoula
Camping: Various locations along I-84 and I-90, 
including a Best Western in Cheney, Washington



We pulled up our jacks at Lewis and Clark Golf and RV Resort in Astoria at our typical departure time—about 10 a.m. This day marked the beginning of our three month-long trek back to Florida AND the second anniversary of our life as full-time RVers (MHers?) Vic promises to write the year in review post after I catch us up with the many adventures we have had the past week.

As we are beginning our third year on the road, I am starting to realize we are falling into a pattern. (I recall from my science classes: one is chance, two is coincidence, three is a pattern.)  In our steadfast quest for ideal weather with temps between 50-85 and low humidity, we have locked onto winters in Florida, and summers in the Northwest. This plan may seem a little unreasonable in terms of geography (read: diesel fuel bill), but it does give us the great opportunity to use spring and fall for checking off travel destinations on our bucket list. Since we have no clue how many years we will be on the road full-time, we are ambitious about seeing everything we want to see while we can. And, we both agree that we should do what we like best while we are doing this—hence, Florida and Oregon so far trump all the options we considered for long-term stays.

Having said all this, our fall travels are fairly ambitious. A few posts ago, I included this map which is still our basic plan. Keep in mind we are doing this itinerary with no advance reservations so we can be spontaneous as the need or desire arises.



From Astoria, we were going to travel to a Boardman Marina and RV Park, a lovely city park in Boardman, Oregon, as we enjoyed this campground as the first stop on our travels two years ago.  The distance from Astoria to Boardman is 250 miles which fits perfectly with our general plans for 3-5 hour travel days; however, I discovered a Corp of Engineer park that looked really great, Plymouth Campground, which would only cost $11.00 per night for 30 amp and water with our senior pass for national parks. We decided to use the COE park as home base for two days allowing us to eliminate our next planned overnight stop in Walla Walla, an important stopover for me at a world class wine-tasting mecca. (Yes, the soil is good for growing more than onions!) Since Walla Walla was only an hour away, and with Vic as my trusty designated driver, we spent about five hours there the next day visiting the following wineries:

L’Ecole: The tasting room is housed in an old schoolhouse that used to be one of my all-time favorite Washington wines. We visited here about seven years ago and splurged on some of their library wines. No more. I was a little worried I would be tempted again, but sadly (or fortunately, according to Vic) their wines did not taste as good as I remembered them.


Waterbrook: I discovered this winery a few years ago in Corvallis and always seek out their Melange Red as a great “house” wine. The tasting room we visited was new since we had last been here but Waterbrook has been making wine in the Columbia Valley for almost thirty years. (That’s a long time in this area as it was just granted appellation status in 1984.)  As luck would have it, Vic and I liked ever single wine we tasted. ( I tasted—he confirmed my nods of approval).  The only problem was we planned to visit at least three more Go To wineries on my list, so it was hard to make decisions about what to buy.

Dunham Cellars:  Mike and BJ, if you are reading this—stop.  I don’t want you to know how much Three Legged Red I consumed or bought. This was my first visit here and I already knew that their low end Three Legged Blend was a favorite, so I was in real trouble. The wine tasting host explained it like this: Three Legged Red is your Monday-Thursday vino and the rest of the wines are for the weekend or special occasions. Okay then, but what if all seven days of the week are the same to me now?  What a problem to have. . . .


Russell Creek: Truthfully, this winery wasn’t on my list, but it should have been. Thanks to the wine steward at Dunham, we made a beeline for this place before it closed at 4 p.m.  The winemaker, Larry Krivoshein, is one of the guys who put Walla Walla on the map for world class wines. As luck would have it, he was our “sommelier.”  What a character. He only offers tastings of wines that are four or five years old. Krivoshein has won three gold medals or “best in show” out of over 400 other Northwest wines since 2000.  It was a good stop.

By now we were getting hungry and headed into downtown Walla Walla for some sustenance. I had hoped to make it in time to one more tasting room that had high marks in the reviews I had read: Forgeron Cellars. The winemaker, Marie Eve is from France, and her wine has the reputation of being quite refined. She earned this reputation as, once again, all the tastings were outstanding. This is a small winery that only makes about 5000 cases a year, so it is not a wine that I am likely to find in Florida.



The dogs were quite happy to see us finally return to the motorhome. The plan for the next day was to head to Spokane where Vic hoped to see a college roommate and get an assessment from Freightliner (Freedom Truck Center) about our low coolant warning issue, something I have not taken the time to write about until now.

The quick story is that we have had the low coolant warning light go on at least four or five times recently, mostly when traveling up a steep grade. Vic has to pull over and top it off for the sensor to turn off or else the red check engine light goes on and the engine shuts down in 45 seconds—which has happened twice. We had McCoy Freightliner in Salem pressure test our radiator a few weeks ago and they determined it was fine, but the problem continued.  Fast forward to Spokane. We had the low coolant light come on twice on way there from the Plymouth COE, so Freightliner was our first stop around 2 p.m. in the afternoon. They determined that we had a problem with the EGR cooler and said it was still under warranty, so we made an appointment for the next morning to have it replaced.  We found an “okay” place to stay nearby at Ponderosa Falls RV Resort in nearby Cheney, a private Coast to Coast campground that allows non-members to stay there based on availability. 



It turned out Vic’s friend was busy with a big trial and we were not able to see him. While the motorhome cooling system was being repaired the next day, we took the opportunity to explore downtown Spokane, something neither of us had ever done. The riverfront park area was quite pleasant and we enjoyed taking a long walk around downtown to get a sense of the city.  It was pretty apparent that the city has taken an economic downturn recently as many storefronts or office buildings were for sale or lease. 

We also took a drive around the Gonzaga University campus, as my basketball fan husband was interested in seeing their sports facilities. 



The bad news was that the motorhome was not ready to go in a few hours like they had promised. Apparently replacing this part was way more involved than they thought. They admitted they are not experts in dealing with the nuances of motorhomes; as a result, we had to stay in a motel overnight at our own expense. We found a Best Western nearby that allowed dogs and made the best of it, knowing that we really needed to solve this coolant problem before continuing on.



Fast forward to morning—we checked out at noon and still had not heard from Freightliner. We drove there and discovered they were waiting on a delivery of a new hose as someone had sent them the wrong one earlier in the day.  More waiting. Finally around 5:30 p.m., they said The Big EZ was ready to go. 
Okay, then. Our plan was to stay overnight in Missoula at a Harvest Hosts site, Big Sky Brewing Company before heading north to Flathead Lake. The drive was going to be about three hours and the one hour time change meant we would be arriving after dusk. Plan B was to dry camp overnight at the Silver Dollar Bar and Casino near St. Regis, about a two hour drive. However, before we drove even 30 miles out of Spokane, the low coolant light came on again.  Bummer. We called Freightliner and they said there might just be an air bubble in the lines. Vic had stocked up on coolant just in case, so he topped it off again and away we went.  About 30 miles later, the same thing happened. By now it was almost dusk and we happened to be directly in front of a sweet little campground, Kahnderosa, just off I-90, so we pulled in and spent the night. At 7 a.m. we called the Freightliner in Spokane and requested they send someone out to see what was going on with our cooling system. They agreed, so we had a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed the view of the Coeur d’Alene River from our picnic table. Not having to be anywhere by a certain day or time sure helps lighten the burden of this type of challenge. I tend to be the one who gets impatient; rock steady Victor helps me relax and see the big picture.

 
The same mechanic who worked on our motorhome arrived about a two hours later to see if he could diagnose and fix the problem. We could see that coolant had been leaking out the overflow pipe and spraying the guard on our toad.  He could not find any other leak and thought maybe the problem was just a series of air bubbles in the radiator. In any event, he thought it would be just fine. I never had confidence in this kid as it took him about two hours to open the panel to the engine on the bedroom floor, but what do I know?

We drove on to Missoula and had at least two more incidences with the same low coolant warning.  I neglected to mention that we had called the 24-7 Freightliner hotline  (1-800-FTL-HELP) in Gaffney, So. Carolina to compare notes with them.They backed their mechanics and said everything sounded like the right things were done. Regardless, we called Freightliner in Missoula for another evaluation and the foreman suspected we might have a leaking radiator cap.  Are you kidding me? My suspicion is that this was our only problem all along. Sure enough. They tested the cap, replaced it, and suggested we take it for a test ride up a small pass about 15 miles to the north. We did and no more problems! The funny part was the Brewery was just across the street from Freightliner and they had a great big parking lot where we felt comfortable spending the night.





After putting down the jacks and extending the slides, I suggested we go roam around downtown Missoula, my old college town. After a visit to one of the more famous bars in Missoula, Charlie B’s, and a bit to eat at the brewery next door,  I felt brave and called a friend whom I had not seen for decades and she said, “Come on over.”  We originally met after college in a natural childbirth class 35 years ago!  It was incredibly sweet to see her again. 



The next morning we were off to spend a week at Flathead Lake, something I have not done since my boys were in grade school.  Yippee ki-yay!