I just updated Day 16 with the pictures I couldn’t upload last night, so if you are interested, please read that Day as well as this one. As I said at the end of that post, I was pretty discouraged in the night. Did I mention that it was raining at 5 AM?

But I fell back asleep for an hour, got up and got ready and the rain had stopped and the sun was out and the air was crisp, and all was well again. These two guys, Russ and Roger, are twins:

They had also been staying at the Redwood Inn and were heading home after a fruitless weekend of deer hunting. They are both retired. Russ used to be a welder with the railroads and Roger was an electrician. They love getting out into the woods, even if they don’t catch anything.

Here are a couple of scenes as I got going:

It might have been interesting to stop here — I have no idea:

Double silo:

Quadruple silo!

I saw a few lovely willow trees:

Gobs of diatoms:

Going through the little town of Catherine (last syllable rhymes with dine) I met George, who was out for his daily walk:

He has deep roots in the area. Until he retired he worked with the egg engineering group at Cornell in Ithaca. I would love to have spent an hour talking to him about this! He pointed out a little side street that I could go up and get a great view of the valley into which I was about to descend:

There is a little white strip in the top left of this picture — that’s the Watkins Glen Formula 1 track grandstand. To the right you can see the southern end of Seneca Lake, which would be roughly my halfway point for the day.

Here are a few scenes as I descended into the valley — in the third one you can see the lake again.

From google maps it looked like I was going to be on highway 14 all day, but as George pointed out, lots of people failed to distinguish between County 14 (where I started) and State 14 (where I ended). Here
is a shot looking backward that shows the distinction:

As I walked through Montour Falls, I saw this little shop that was selling — well, you can see what it was selling:

Random stream picture:

It’s actually a state law!

When I got into Watkins Glen I was feeling pretty weary so rather than press on like I did yesterday, I stopped at a Pizza Hut and had some lunch. January and Jennifer let me put my kit inside and kept me topped up on hot tea as I sampled the pizza and salad bar. I even fell asleep for a few minutes at one point.

Jennifer told me a story, which included the detail that they had had some snow somewhere around here in the last few days! Yikes!

Along the main drag in Watkins Glen were these inset stones that appeared to be the names of famous car racers, together with trophies they had won:

No comment:

The afternoon was beautiful, strolling down the street:

and eventually I hit the southern end of the lake:

Immediately State 14, going north up the west side of the lake, started to rise:

Here is a shot looking backward:

Because of the height it was possible to get spectacular views of the lake all along this section. I took some photos, but as usual it’s hard to capture large-scale scenery.

Drying corn under a blue sky:

Yet another lake shot:

The sky was darkening but it did not rain:

The region is famous for wineries. This appeared to be one that was just opening (at least for tours):

and they had grapes:

I just can’t resist the dark skies:

I finally arrived at my destination, the Golden Knight Inn and Suites:

Carol was there to welcome me and already had my room ready:

Here’s the view out my window:

[I have left the text I wrote from last night here, but have added the missing pictures below — please scroll down.]

Dearest gentle readers — I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint today. I had a wonderful, albeit chilly, 15-mile walk with essentially no human interactions but lots of beautiful scenery, so my story today must be told largely in pictures.

Unfortunately I’m in the “town” (read highway intersection) of Alpine, NY in a minuscule motel without internet. I have difficulty even convincing google maps to find it — it keeps trying to pick Alpine, NJ. Anyway under these circumstances I rely on a good cellular connection to tether my iPhone to my iPad. To compound the situation, cellular service is weak here — one bar in my room and two in the Subway across the street where I’m seated now. Apparently this is not enough to upload my pictures reliably, so after trying now for a couple of hours I am going to give up.

I thought this would happen sometime and I’m glad it hasn’t up to now. I’m thankful I have enough bandwidth at least to answer your comments from yesterday and to post this brief apology. Hopefully the situation will improve tomorrow, at which time I will fill in today’s blog post with all my pictures, including a caption contest for best caption for a funny sign I saw today.

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Excellent — so it’s tomorrow (Day 17) and I have a good internet connection and now I can publish my pictures from Day 16, including the caption contest I promised.

There had been rain overnight and then a hard frost but the morning was brilliant and sunny. Stirling made me a fabulous breakfast — coffee, pastries, omelette, bacon, potates — and then saw me off:

Here are a couple of shots as I walked out to the highway on that sunny, crisp morning:

As usual, I will show some pictures I took along the way, some without comment:

This fir-lined driveway must look magical after a snowfall:

I bet this building is clearly visible in the satellite view of google maps — can anyone find it?

Here’s an idea of what the sky was like:

When I saw this sign I started thinking about units. The units here are miles but for me, I would like hours. So I would read this sign as “Watkins Glen 8, Waverly 5”:

I guess it’s colder on the left side of the road:

Double silo!

OK, here’s the funny sign that needs a caption. I thought of a bunch after seeing it, but I thought it would be fun to see what my readers came up with:

The sky was starting to darken, but it didn’t rain — it just got a little chillier. By the way, the solar charger that I keep on top of my bin works even with skies like this, albeit not as well:

I read this as “leaping deer, next 4 hours”:

I loved the color variety here:

Eventually the road swung around and descended to the right into a lovely glen (Scot-speak for valley):

It’s really impossible to capture these long ridges of vibrant color; here is a weak attempt:

Eventually I came out of the glen and passed through Cayuta (biggest feature was a saw mill) and thence to Alpine. Here a few snaps in that last little bit:

First, a seemingly neglected horse with burrs on its head:

Then a few stream pictures:

I finally arrived at this tired motel — the Redwood Inn:

As I said last night, it was very discouraging that I couldn’t get internet. I walked across the road to Subway, freezing and shivering, and it still didn’t work. I didn’t sleep well, I had another flat which I fixed at 5 AM, it was raining in the night, I was fretting about all the days left to try and find accommodation; as my wife would say, I was just being my usual Eeyore.