Archive | The Pearl RSS feed for this section

June 24-28 Sheldrake House Vacation

By Trawlers on June 29, 2023 in The Pearl

“The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world.” -Georges Simenon

Our second family vacation of the summer was at a beautiful home in my favorite part of Cayuga Lake…Sheldrake. It’s a spectacular area with pretty homes, a great winery and no hills you have to climb down to get to the lake.

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

June 24-28 Sheldrake House Vacation

By Trawlers on June 26, 2023 in The Pearl

“The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world.” -Georges Simenon

Check in time to Airbnbs is always late in the afternoon so the kids come to the boat first. We have a picnic lunch and play at the marina until it’s time to move in. This time we rode bikes, played soccer and roller skated.

The house – Sheldrake House was built in 1850 and has been owned by only a few families throughout its history. It also belonged to the New York Chiropractic College for a while during the 1970s.

A picture of the house in the early 1900s.

The kitchen

The living room, dining room, game room and library

The Bedrooms

The Boathouse

The first evening after dinner we enjoyed playing in the boat house. There were lots of spotty rain showers in the area so we didn’t have much of a sunset.

On Sunday we couldn’t have asked for a better day to play on the lake. We spent hours riding and tubing on the boat, had a picnic lunch on the boathouse deck and spent the afternoon playing in the water on our beach.

Being on the boat is so much fun.

Everyone loved being pulled on the raft.

Graham got very brave after a little alone time on the raft.

Kyle enjoying the knee board.

Playing on the lake can wear you out.

A look at the house from the lake.

There were scattered rain showers in the area the whole time we were at the house, but that didn’t stop us from truly enjoying our stay. We filled our time playing in the water, painting rocks, playing games, riding bikes, kicking the soccer ball around, reading, working on a puzzle and enjoying some great food.

This was our favorite place to paint and to eat…what a view.

We always eat well on our little get aways.

Even the kids like to help cook.

Just a few of the wonderful things we enjoyed eating at the Sheldrake House.

Enjoying a quiet moment on the porch.

Views from the porch were amazing.

We love closing out our vacations with a fire, s’mores and family fun.

No rain for us…just a rainbow and a wonderful view of the lake.

That’s a wrap on this vacation. Lots of great memories.

June 21 – Hiking & Waterfalls

By Trawlers on June 22, 2023 in The Pearl

“Choice. Chance. Change. You must make the choice, to take a chance if you want anything in life to change.” -Author Unknown

It was such a beautiful day we decided to do a few hikes at some new places. I’ve heard wonderful things about Stony Brook State Park, so we headed west to Dansville to check it out. While we were in the area we also did a little hiking at The Gully Preserve. Both places were beautiful and almost empty…just the way we like it.

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

June 21 – Hiking & Waterfalls

By Trawlers on June 22, 2023 in The Pearl

“Choice. Chance. Change. You must make the choice, to take a chance if you want anything in life to change.” -Author Unknown

Our first stop was at Stony Brook. They were doing a little maintenance at the park so we had to enter the Gorge Trail from the south entrance. This park was a summer resort in the late 19th century, following the construction of a railroad in 1883. By the late 1920s the resort fell into decline and the state of New York acquired the land. The park was established in 1928 and with the help of the CCC in the 1930s it added trails and bridges making it what we see today. Like the other gorges in the Finger Lakes this beautiful area was created by receding glaciers.

From the parking lot at the southern end we had to come down these stairs…so on the way back we had to go up.

The upper falls are known as Shawmut Falls. We had to do a little scrambling down the side of the brook to get to this one. On the way back to the main trail we walked in the brook.

The trail along Stony Brook.

The top of the middle falls.

This is the middle falls are known as Pittsburg Falls.

This is the lower falls known as Northern Falls.

This bridge was as far as we could hike today. From here we had to return on the same trail.

Looking down stream from the bridge. Maybe next time we can hike the whole gorge.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch at the state park and then we made our way over to the Gully Preserve. I had read the trails here might be hard to find, but we found that to be the opposite. They were quite easy to follow and took us to some amazing sights in a fairly short distance.

On the south side of the road is a large wide falls that some call Pokey-Moonshine Falls. The falls cascade over the cliff into a deep and shadowy gorge. We decided to view the falls from the top since the hillside was wet and slippery. But on a hot day the pool below would be a great place to swim.

The top of Pokey-Moonshine Falls.

Looking down the cliff at the falls and gorge.

We climbed down this far so we could get a better look at the falls.

The falls from part way down the cliff.

To get to the falls on the north side we followed the creek just off the road. It led up to a chute-like falls with water running through a large straight crack in the bedrock and down multiple tiers. This whole area is hidden from the upper trail.

The trail along the creek.

A look at the chute along the creek.

The falls at the of the public trail.

On the way back to Ithaca we stopped at this cute little shop in a town called North Cohocton.

June 7-10 Graham’s Visit

By Trawlers on June 15, 2023 in The Pearl

“Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.” — Alex Haley

It’s hard to believe this is Graham’s seventh summer to come to our boat in Ithaca. He has transformed from a little toddler to a lanky young man. We’ve been tracking the kid’s growth on the wall in our stateroom since 2019 and he has grown over 12″ in that time.

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

June 7-10 Graham’s Visit

By Trawlers on June 15, 2023 in The Pearl

“Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.” — Alex Haley

His interests have changed and grown too. He’s slowing out growing some of our regular places to visit. The weather didn’t cooperate while Graham was here to do some of the things we’d planned, but we all seemed to have a great time. The only sunny day we had the smoke out of Canada made it nearly impossible to be outside and the other days were wet and cold, but we made the best of it and found other things to do. We visited the Sciencenter, rode bikes, did some experiments, built a Lego robot, watched movies, played video games, played Uno, ate a lot of food and played soccer every chance we had. Overall it was a lot of fun.

This is how a sunny day on the lake looks when it’s covered with smoke from Canada.

But there’s always something interesting on the Ipad…and sometimes laying on the bunk relaxing is the best thing to do.

Every change we got we went out and played soccer. We live in a park so that was an easy thing to do.

Riding bikes around our park is fun too.

But when it was raining…we did experiments. We made moon dough and Oobleck. Both were fun and used things we already had onboard.

One morning we went to the Sciencenter. Graham has always loved this place, but I think he has almost outgrown it.

I think Graham’s favorite thing to do is eat and we had some good stuff while he was with us.

We had to make him play Uno with us the first night…after that he was hooked. We had a great time and laughed a lot.

May Updates

By Trawlers on June 4, 2023 in The Pearl

“Be thankful for nights that turned into mornings. Friends that turned into family and dreams that turned into realities.” -Author Unknown

May has mainly been about reconnecting with our Pennsylvania family, but we have managed to squeeze in a few other activities. We drove up to the boat in Cayuga on April 30…in the rain. We unload the car and get things stored, even though it rained all day. On May 1 we launched the boat and began our summer season although spring temperatures have been hard to come by this year. It’s a good thing we have warm clothes, because it’s been a cool month.

We had a great time in Pennsylvania…painting, playing and attending a street fair.

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

May 25-29 Seneca Lake House Vacation

By Trawlers on May 31, 2023 in The Pearl

“Family is a life jacket in the stormy sea of life.” –J.K. Rowling

Our first summer getaway was at a wonderful house on Seneca Lake. We’ve all been looking forward to this house since we booked it last year. It was a little piece of heaven right on the water. It was such a wonderful place we hardly went anywhere else. We spent lots of time sitting on the deck, looking for treasures along our beach, painting rocks, playing games and exploring the creek that ran beside the house. Unfortunately it was a little too cool to swim in the frigid lake water…although Graham did brave one jump off the diving board. He has to get in no matter how cold it is.

The house

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

May 25-29 Seneca Lake House Vacation

By Trawlers on May 31, 2023 in The Pearl

“Family is a life jacket in the stormy sea of life.” –J.K. Rowling

The house

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

May Updates

By Trawlers on May 31, 2023 in The Pearl

“Be thankful for nights that turned into mornings. Friends that turned into family and dreams that turned into realities.” -Author Unknown

May has mainly been about reconnecting with our Pennsylvania family, but we have managed to squeeze in a few other activities. We drove up to the boat in Cayuga on April 30…in the rain. We unload the car and got things stored, even though it rained all day. On May 1 we launched the boat and began our summer season although spring temperatures have been hard to come by this year. It’s a good thing we have warm clothes, because it’s been a cool month.

We had a great time in Pennsylvania…painting, playing and attending a street fair.

Let the work begin…we kept the shrink wrap on the boat as we unloaded the car and got everything settled into the boat.

Monday May 1st was still cool, but the sun started to make an appearance.

In she goes for our seventh season on Cayuga Lake.

Arriving at our marina in Ithaca.

Very empty the first few weeks, but by the end of May the marina had come alive.

After getting settled in at the marina we spent a week with our grands while their parents attended a conference in Wisconsin.

The kids belong to a running club, so on Sunday we had the chance to see them compete. Half a mile for Graham, a quarter mile for Cora and 100 yard dash for Hattie.
On the way home from nanny duty we treated ourselves to a nice lunch at the Ithaca Beer Company. We love coming here on beautiful days to enjoy a pizza and a little beer.

We have cruising friends that have a horse farm in Oneonta. They breed thoroughbred horses and one of their babies was running at the Finger Lake Racetrack. We’ve joined them before and had a great time…this time was just as fun. On our way to the track we saw several Amish men working in the field.

Good friends enjoying a beautiful day.

Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack

This is their baby Support the Cat. They only breed them and then sell the horses for others to train and race. Unfortunately he didn’t win this time, but he made a good showing.

Maryann reconnecting with her baby.

Getting our little boat ready for the season. This year our two boats are side by side.

Towards the end of the month we went back to Pennsylvania to watch Cora in her dance recital. It was a great day for a picnic and enjoying the family.