THE LIGHT IN FRONT

After the 3 straight urban experiences, one of them being pretty much the ultimate urban experience (NYC), I was extremely giddy to get back to nature. I needed to rack up the experience points and get to the advanced camping level needed for the Badlands and Yellowstone. My closest friend David, from PR, who went to Cornell, has never stopped raving about awesome Ithaca is, although many others disagreed by pointing out is middle-of-nowhereness (I’ve since realized most of these people suck at life), and I never really went out of my way to go visit him while in college. I regret that, cause Ithaca is, indeed, fucking awesome.

I had come up with 3 possible camping spots near Ithaca. I consulted with David and he heavily favored one called Taughannock Falls, although I was a bit hesitant since the pictures on the brochure showed a bunch of asshole kids playing around a lake with arm floaties. Nonetheless, I decided to listen and headed straight there. Since I had left Albany later than planned, by the time I got to the camping spot, it was a bit too late to go out for a hike and get good light for pictures, so I just focused on setting up a cozy camp. The campground was OK, nearly full, but I found one spot that looked like a shitty site (rocky, inclined) that for some reason compelled me to check it out further. I then found a trail not visible from the roadway that led about 100 yards into the forest, and ended up in what seemed to be an abandoned (or at least seldom used) campsite, with an old picnic table and tallish grass. I actually liked it quite a bit, and I enjoyed that it was very secluded, so I did a bit of flattening and weed pulling and set up camp for the night:

Notice how I was yet so unfamiliar with the new camera I hadn’t even turned off the date display on it. I did a bit of reading up on the camera features and getting some test shots, like this poor firefly who tried to mate with the propane lamp.

A fitfull night’s rest later, it was early morning and time to take a hike to see what was so fantastic about this waterfall (which was not visible on the way there… the lake with kids was plenty visible though). I had literally not seen ONE picture of this waterfall, so I wasn;t sure what I was gonna encounter. There were two trails, one that goes along the top rim and looks down on the gorge, and one that follows along the stream at the bottom looking up. As per David’s suggestion again, I followed the bottom one.

The hike to the waterfall was about an hour, maybe a bit longer cause there were so many stops along the way to get closer to the stream and see fantastic shit.

When I finally got to the waterfall, I was truly not prepared for how impressive it was. 215 feet tall, it is taller than Niagara Falls by 30 feet, and is surrounded by a concave atrium where the top of the walls threaten to come down at any moment… and they can, since the geology and makeup of the rocks makes the ones at the bottom erode faster than the ones at the top, giving the walls their concavity. Plenty of signs warned you to get the fuck away from these rocks, and it sounded like a good suggestion. The scale of this thing was fucking epic:

And I finally got a chance to test out the video features on the camera on it. It was a very serene, quiet, grey morning, and I was very happy to see that I could much better capture the essence of moments with this than I ever would with still images (I’m a pretty shitty photographer). Here’s Taughannock Falls at 210 frames per second:

My mind pretty blown, I walked back to the car and decided to head into town to check out some of the other suggested stuff. I had some very rad Vietnamese food for lunch, then headed to the Johnson Museum in Cornell. The museum collection was OK, mostly historical and ancient art with a bit of contemporary, but its true draw was its architecture and the stunning 360° view of Ithaca visible from the top floor.

After the museum, it was off to Starbucks to do some blog updating, and then to Ithaca Beer Co. to try some tasty beers. Left with a six-pack of Flower Power IPA and headed back to camp. A small hike through the forest before sundown netted delicious wild raspberries and blackberries, and then it was back to bed. The next day, I was bound to get moving to Toronto, but there was one important thing I had to do before I left. I had to get rid of the Ginodoll.

To tell you the truth, I’ve been having trouble finding miserable situations to put him in, cause there’s very little misery to be had on this trip. He takes up too much valuable space in my backpack, so I just decided to get rid of this stupid gimmick and not concern myself with it anymore. Therefore, we went to the lake for a swim. Here he is, admiring the view:

…before I tied a special buddy to his ankles:

…and sent him off for a permanent swimming vacation:

Wheeeee.

Sploosh.

I waded in quickly (it was cold as shit) to make sure he was securely fastened to the bottom, told him to fuck off, and got on the road to Canada. I hope a thousand salmons are shitting on his head right now.

As always, many more pictures on flickr. The journey to Toronto coming up next.