Anticipating big doses of water, hiking and autumn driving we took off from NYC Saturday morning arriving at our first overnight of the trip in Ithaca . (Had dinner at the imfamous Moosewood restaurant).
Nov 16, we leave directly Sunday morning toward Letchworth State Park for some hiking. We see the Lower Falls first then visit the upper falls and middle falls. This park is beautiful and impressive and surprisingly deserted. After sunset we head for Niagara Falls to stay on the Canada side for the next couple nights.

Nov 17, an overcast and foggy day, we explore Niagara Falls from the Canadian side, including a tour of the observation tunnels made behind the Canadian side of the falls. The falls are tremendous, BIG, powerful, and they throw off a lot of mist.

Nov 18, leaving Niagara Falls we wake to a very sunny morning, nice! We have breakfast on the top of the Hitlon (32nd floor) for some of our best views. By the time we leave Canada it has become overcast again and we tour goat island, between the US Falls and the Canadian Falls.
We head for Rochester, stopping at the Lady of Fatima shrine in Youngston, NY, on the way. Our Lady is atop the dome-shaped shurch there amid over 100 life-size statues of saints in the gardens.
Arriving in Rochester in the afternoon we take in the Eastman museum . There are splendid historical exhibits of very early photographic work and equipment and the Eastman mansion that is part of the museum is an example of early 20th century industrialist finery.

Nov 19, we're looking for more art in Rochester and find it at the Memorial Art Museum. Then after a fabulous veggie sushi lunch at California Rollin we find the Artisan's workshops where a couple dozen local artists work and over 100 artists show their work. We make our way after sunset to Watkins Glen.

Nov 20, We hike Watkins Glen, another gorgeous upstate gorge with waterfalls and cascades. At this time of year the lower walkways are closed but the upper ones provide some great views. We then visit the nearby Farm Sanctuary (www.farmsanctuary.org) where our self-guided tour brought us to the cows, goats, sheep, geese, ducks, pigs etc. who have been saved from particularly abusive farm conditions. We also visited several wineries on the West side of Seneca Lake and saw some llamas along the way! We stay in Ithaca again.

Nov 21, the Johnson museum on the Cornell campus has fabulous collections of Asian art along with contemporary western art and current exhibits - and unparalled views of the area from its prominent hillside perch. Between Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake we explored a bit of FingerLakes National Forest - the only National Forest in NY state. We explored a few wineries on the East side of Seneca Lake while we were at it.