And yes, I’m referring to the secret beauty of Upstate NY.
OK…this title may be a bit unfair.
After all, there are a lot of people around the country who think all Californian’s look like “Baywatch” models and that we all work as wait staff waiting to be discovered or in the movie industry when in reality that’s mostly LA. Not surprising then that most of the country thinks of NY as Wall Street business men and “Suits” lawyers working for fortune 500 hustlers in the city that never sleeps. All this despite the millions of hours Governor Cuomo spent with us talking about Manhattan being a much different situation than Upstate NY and it still didn’t sink in for me.
From astonishing Niagara Falls (post here) and mid-sized Rochester (post here) we headed towards the Finger Lakes area.
Near Keuka Lake we cycled in Penn Yan over small wooden bridges, past pretty pooling falls and through tree lined paths that dare I say rival those of Washington state!
Penn Yan 
The Glen Curtiss Museum is a Harvest Host in the area (link to post here) that we thoroughly enjoyed!
Zig-zagging between the many lakes we experienced lush green rolling hills, pretty farms, the waterfalls at Taughannock Falls State Park, multiple hilltop vineyards and wineries overlooking the water (including Harvest Host property Hazlitt Vineyards), pretty little towns, and scenic mountain and waterside drives. We also enjoyed Watkins Glenn State Park and Robert H Treman State Park so much that I’ll post separately on those as well.
Can you believe this scenery?! This is a far cry from Manhattan. Not that I don’t love Manhattan, I really do; but much like northern and southern California, Manhattan and Upstate NY are two completely different worlds.
Curtiss Museum (more later)
Taghannock Falls 
Hazlitt Vineyards 
We spent July 3rd at the most disorganized Harvest Host we’ve been to, Ithaca Honey Works. They were new to HH and made honey. They weren’t there, which was fine, but their place was tough to find and where to park for the night was bit unclear, especially since we had to pass a broken down van surrounded by trash that looked like a homeless (ok not like us…but a really down-on-their-luck homeless person) lived there. Chicken coops were randomly situated on the property and the owner (via text messages) directed us to where we could find honey hidden in a shed – but without any pricing so we had to look that up on their website in order to buy some. With all of that said ;-), the parking spot at the back of their property was actually beautiful (and featured some of the great firefly displays that we’ve enjoyed in rural NY), the location is close to several state parks and the honey looks amazing – so hopefully this host will get it together 🙂 !
We spent 4th of July in Auburn NY at a harvest host brewery called Prison City Brewing before heading toward the Adirondack Mountains. The brewery had wonderful craft beer, a delicious food truck, and a live band that we really enjoyed. That evening, Doug rode his bike down to the waterfront where they were doing fireworks. The next day we drove around town and it was obvious that the residents take pride in living there! It didn’t check all of our retirement boxes but there were a lot of things to like about it!
Prison City Brewing
Auburn 
All in all, the cycling, paddling, hiking, camping, wines, ciders, beer, and lush landscape of this area has been the biggest surprise on our eastern US tour.
