Jennifer

I’m at the Country Inn & Suites at Big Flats right now. The inn is beautiful, with a fireplace in the lobby, a wooden winding staircase. It’s hospitablie with coffee, cocoa, and cookies and milk all the time. Every morning they also have a continental breakfast that’s to die for. They even have waffles and a delicious sausage gravy and biscuits.

The town of Big Flats itself is really nice. There’s a lot of shopping centers, with a decent sized mall right outside the door of the hotel, and a few more plazas with chain stores and restaurants right down the road.

There’s a nice park dedicated to a state trooper who was killed in the line of duty called Sperr Memorial, which has walking trails and a small playground. It’s landscaped beautifully, and really makes for a nice scenic walk.

My mom used to take my sister and I and our friends to many of the waterfalls and gorges in the Finger Lakes region when we were little, but we have never been to the Watkins Glen State Park before. My mom told me the last time that she went there was when she was a teenager in the 1960’s. Things have changed quite a bit since then. She said you used to be able to picnic anywhere, now there is a small designated picnic area at the South entrance. My mom and her friends also used to swim in the natural pools in the park. Swimming is now prohibited since people have died from the strong undercurrents in the pools.

The park really is beautiful. The pathways, stairs, and bridges are made from natural rocks, so they blend in perfectly with the natural surroundings. There is a lot of climbing, so I definitely got my workout that day. :) It was well worth the hike though, as the scenery seemed to get more beautiful the farther out you went. My mom was telling me that her favorite part of the park as a girl was the path where you could walk under the waterfall. We were hoping that was still a part of the park, and happily, it was. My mom was so happy that it still was there. She went up to the falls and put her arms out to catch the water, and had me take two pictures of her doing it. She was so excited, it was so cute. :)

After we got to the path under the waterfall, we turned back, since we thought we had a lot of climbing to do since most of the way there was downhill. However, we took a path called Lover’s Lane that was much shorter and didn’t have nearly as many stairs, so the way back turned out to be easier than the way in.

Corning is a great little town. It’s beautiful, well maintained, and downtown Corning is great for window shopping. :)

My grandmother used to take me on rides on Corning’s double-decker busses. I remember going to the Corning glass museum and watching the exhibits of glass-blowing with awe when I was a little girl, and having fun playing on the glass playground.

Every time I go to Corning I feel like a little girl again. They have a maze going across the walking bridge that is drawn in yellow and blue paint. When I went to Corning yesterday, my mom and I traveled through the maze as we crossed the bridge, and I really did feel like a care-free little kid. Corning has that effect on people. :D

They have a great park near the walking bridge with a pavillion that is decorated in vines that is really beautiful. We ate our lunch there, which was a pizza that we got from the best Pizzeria in upstate New York: Aniello’s on Market Street in Corning. It is New York style pizza, large flat slices that you are meant to fold when you eat with just the right amount of cheese and delicious, mouth watering pizza sauce.

We always used to go to Ithaca in the summer when I was a little girl. We would go to the Robert H Treman State Park and go swimming. It was so much fun to dive off of the high dive into the water below. My sister and I always used to swim up to the falls and stand up on the edge. It was great, because if you scooted yourself along the rocks, you could actually stand under the falls and watch the water fall over you.

We also used to go to Buttermilk Falls, but my sister and I didn’t like it as much since the waterfall was a trickle compared to the Robert Treman falls. Now that I have grown up, I appreciate it more. The falls really are beautiful, and the slow trickle actually adds to the beauty as it really does look like buttermilk coming down the rocks.

Aside from nature, I have always enjoyed downtown Ithaca as well. We used to walk the commons, window shopping through the stores, and stopping for a bite to eat at one of the restaurants.

I had never been to Cornell University until last week. The college town that is around it is amazing. There is so much diversity in the restaurants that are up there. We are planning on going back up there sometime this year to check out some of the restaurants. I love diversity in my food as well as my life, so I can’t wait to try them out. :)

Pennsylvania is really a food lover’s dream. I went on a trip to Lancaster with my mom and grandma. The food was delicious. I’ll never forget the restaurant that we went to on the second night. The pies were the most delicious pies that I have ever tasted. It was the first time that I had ever eaten Shoo-Fly Pie, and I am now hooked. I couldn’t get enough of it.

There are two other food related places that I want to go to in Pennsylvania some day. I absolutely want to visit Hershey, PA. Hershey’s chocolate is my mom’s favorite chocolate, and so far from all of the chocolate that I have tried so far, I would have to agree with her. They say that you can smell the chocolate in the air. That sounds like a wonderful place to go.

Another thing I want to try is a Philadelphia Cheese Steak from Philadelphia. My dad told me that he had gotten one from a street vendor, and it was the best cheese steak he had ever eaten. I have been through Philadelphia a few times, but like New York City, I never took the time to actually experience all the city has to offer. I definitely want to do that some day.

I’ve lived in Elmira, NY all my life, and I’m glad to say that it is starting to become a nice place to visit again. There used to be an amusement park here called Eldridge Lake that was in business since the early 1900’s, but it was dismantled in the late 1980’s. The park is starting to come back together, due to a lot of money and hard work from the community. Eldridge Park has an old-fashioned carousel again, and one of the horses is from the original Eldridge Park carousel from the early 1900’s. My mom and I walk around the walking path around the lake as often as we can. It’s a lot of fun during the summer time when the carousel is running. They have 1950’s music playing, 50’s era automobiles parked in front of the carousel, and popcorn for sale from a refurbished 1950’s era popcorn truck.

Of course, there’s also Mark Twain’s study in Elmira, which is a really cool thing to see. It’s a small open-windowed building that was given to Mark Twain by his sister and brother in law. He wrote a lot of his books there, and the study is still in great condition, sitting on the Elmira College Campus.

I was born and raised in upstate New York, so I have done quite a bit here. I loved skiing at Greek Peak Ski Resort in Cortland, New York, though I haven’t been there since high school. I’d love to go back there some day. Another place that I haven’t been to since high school that I would love to visit again is Darien Lake Theme Park Resort in Darien Center, NY. I used to love the water park there, and the water related rides such as the river rafting ride, Grizzly Run. Of course, one of the coolest places to visit is New York City. I’ve been there several times, but I haven’t really taken the time to actually take all of the things that the city has to offer. I do remember going through there on our way to the Meadowlands in New Jersey for the Nintendo World Championships in 1990 and being absolutely amazed at the sight of the buildings, opening up the car window and looking straight up. The architecture in the city really is beautiful.