One (of the many) nice things about heading to Long Island in the summer is the chance to play a little clay court tennis in the comfort of the backyard. We managed to fit some play in between the gobs of people using the court (seriously guys, you should start charging!)

Here is a shot of Novak Djokovik Eric’s overhead smash. :)

Eric and I played twice and he got to play for 2 hours on Saturday morning before the party. Even he admitted his legs were a bit sore the next day!

Eric sent me an airfare deal to Bangkok/Singapore with a free layover in Hong Kong and what postcard shows up in our mailbox that day?

(Also note the beautiful stamps!)

This morning marked our first time at the Raleigh farmer’s market this summer and we had one main goal in mind… sweet corn! We also picked up some peaches, sweet peppers, cucumbers (4 for $1!) and zinnias.

As soon as we got home, Eric set up his shucking station outside and Riesling supervised. This is the look I got when I asked her to sit.

Mama, can’t you see I am trying to beg for corn here?

She managed to get a few stray kernels and I’m sure she’ll get another chance to finish our leftovers after dinner.

Finally, AFTER FIVE MONTHS, Delta granted me the double miles for our Zurich trip from their Europe winter promotion. Eric received his miles at the end of May only after emailing them several times. I actually had to fax the head office (after they sent me an email stating that ‘they didn’t think’ I had registered for the promotion), but we’re talking about almost 10K extra miles here, so you better believe I’m not going away.

While I was at it, I faxed AA regarding our codeshare miles for the roundtrip flight to Barcelona. The tickets were purchased on Iberia.com, but we flew American metal over there. Granted, we’ve only been back a month, but I’d rather get the miles into my account before I find the need to use them!

We also both have a free roundtrip ticket anywhere Southwest flies that we have to use before the end of March. Any suggestions? :)

All this waterfall hiking over the last few weeks had me working overtime on photo editing, finding GPS coordinates and lastly, redesigning our waterfall pages into a slicker CSS-styled look.

Eric’s work with the database has made my life a lot easier and I wanted to freshen up the look of the site. Additionally, we’ve created a Google map, so along with the directions on the individual pages, folks should be able to find any of the 209 waterfalls we’ve visited! :)

Rolling up at 10am, I panicked a little when I saw the guard setting up a barricade for the Lake Rose parking lot. Thankfully, he waved us past and we got one of the last parking spots before folks had to add over a mile to hike into the Ganoga Glen gorge. We coated ourselves with bug spray, packed some snacks and hit the trail with Riesling leading the way.

The weather started out perfect, so we took our time to let Eric photograph all the waterfalls. I love a hike that offers regular stopping points! The park boasts 22 named waterfalls, we got photos of 19 of them.

The trail was pretty difficult in spots, lots of stairs, but still very walkable for pup and despite her usual distaste of being wet, she even splashed around below Harrison Wright Falls.

We got caught in a total downpour about 2/3 of the way through the hike, but luckily found some shelter to wait out the storm. Riesling and I were absolutely coated in mud at the end of the 4.5 mile hike (carrying a writhing mud-covered animal will do that to a person), but I know we both had a great time despite what her tail says in the photo below.

Mama, why am I so filthy?

Before allowing her anywhere near the car, we found a wash basin near the campground and gave her a quick bath. :)

After this, we drove the remaining 9 hours home to North Carolina. The GPS put us at our hotel in Maryland around 5pm, so I made the decision to just keep on driving so we could sleep in our own beds for the first time in almost four weeks. Hallelujah!

Ommegang Brewery, Cooperstown—This brewery is well-known for their Belgian-style beers and even though I’m normally not a huge fan of that style, we were minutes away at the Baseball Hall of Fame, so we made the short drive south for the free beer tasting. We arrived when a tour had just ended, so we joined in for the tasting portion. The beers were, in general, very good. All were drinkable and had many nuances including Rare Vos which has orange peel and cardamom notes to it. We bought a bottle of the Rare Vos and the Three Philosophers, a wonderful dark beer that went smashingly with the dark chocolate offered at the tasting.

Adirondack Pub & Brewery, Lake George—In between the Tenant Creek hike and the search for Shelving Rock Falls, we took a short break and had a beer and some chicken tenders at this brewpub. The witty glasses were probably my favorite part of the meal as we both thought our beers were a little watery. Their patio is great, however, the service was fine and we got to watch part of a Euro Cup match with full bellies (and a mild buzz).

Coopers Cave Ale Company, Glens Falls—Eric took pup for a quick walk while I ran in to taste a few of their offerings. The tasting room is basically a little store and a bar at the front of their small brewery. The best beer by miles was the Oatmeal Stout; I also got a 22oz bottle of the porter. Many people were stopping by to get their growlers filled, but they have most of the beers on tap and are happy to pour you a tasting of up to three.

Saranac, Utica—Also known as FX Matts Brewery, this is one of the largest breweries in the United States and has been in the same (original) family for four generations. You can find Saranac beer just about everywhere, but we were staying in Utica, so we figured why not take the tour and try some beer? Our Chicago-born guide had been working there for all of three weeks, so while she was friendly, we couldn’t get many questions answered and there was quite a bit of umms and uhhs. Unfortunately, they had a bad fire about three weeks before our visit, so the bottling facility was off-limits. At the end of the tour, you can have two pints which was a bit much for the middle of the afternoon, but I enjoyed my caramel porter and about half of the imperial stout before we were shooed out. For some odd reason, they didn’t have the logo pint glasses on sale in the gift shop, just the plain soda-inspired ones, but I managed to sweet-talk my way into making them sell me one from the tasting room upstairs! :)

Ithaca Beer Company, Ithaca—After working up a sweat in Falls Gorge, I stopped in here for a sample. Most of the beers are lighter, but I did like the Nut Brown and the very strong Ten Ten. We picked up a few bottles of the ginger beer because it was just spicy enough and very refreshing. The kid behind the counter hailed from Cooperstown, so I had a nice chat with him about a few of the other breweries we had visited earlier in our trip.

Rooster Fish Brewery, Watkins Glen—While our dinners were acceptable (chicken-avocado wrap for me and a chicken, apple and not-as-sharp-as-advertised cheddar sandwich for Eric), about a week before our visit they had experienced a power-outage that ruined all their drought beers save for one. (What is it with these NY breweries and their misfortunes?) Disappointingly, this meant we couldn’t sample any of the tasty-looking house brews. So, instead I got an Arrogant Bastard Ale and Eric stuck with the free refills on the lemonade. While the logo glass is great, no further comment until we can actually taste their beer.

In order to make our multiple-hour drive back to NC more interesting, we took a detour toward Ithaca and Watkins Glen for some more waterfall hiking.

Unfortunately, a few weeks before our visit, a good chunk of the Cascadilla Gorge trail on the south side of Cornell University’s campus was washed out, so that trail was closed. Ithaca Falls (below) and the Fall River trail was open however, and once we figured out where to park for free, we were all set. It was super humid, and then started raining, so the walk was rather uncomfortable and reminded us why we usually stopped hiking in mid-May. There are a few other falls along the gorge but while lovely, it was hard to match the impressive size of Ithaca Falls.

This photo does not properly illustrate how gigantic this falls is in person. Wow.

After a quick stop for some beer tasting, we made our way over to Watkins Glen State Park for the 3 mile roundtrip Gorge Trail hike. All the state parks in the area charge a day use parking fee, but what we didn’t know (and never saw written anywhere) is that if you pay to enter one park, you can visit other parks on the same day for free. Nevertheless, we really only had enough time for one park, so we made the most of the $7 fee here.

I think the website boasts 19 waterfalls, but we classified six that made it into our waterfall database. There are many beautiful rock formations and cascades along the first 2/3s of the Gorge Trail (coming from the main entrance) and we got there around 5:30pm, so the usual summer crowds were absent.

The classic shot of Rainbow Falls (left) and Glen of Pools cascades (right).

The day started out a little slow because we slept so poorly the night before. However, we had a long hike to three waterfalls ahead of us, so we gathered our energy and hit the road.

We found the trailhead with little trouble, and after dousing ourselves completely in Deep Woods OFF, we set off into the woods. I’ve mentioned before how good of a hiker Riesling is, but she absolutely showed us her full potential on this adventure. She was scaling fallen logs and uneven terrain with no problem. I picked her up for a few of the muddy spots, but she was content to give the difficult stuff a try most of the time.

More than halfway into the hike we caught up with two women and a black lab who gave Riesling a good sniff. We borrowed some of their child-friendly bug spray to mist pup because I noticed the bugs starting to gather around her whenever we stopped to let Eric photograph a waterfall.

We saw some lovely scenery on this hike and generally enjoyed being outside tromping through the forest.

The first of the three…

The top section of the second waterfall…

Pup and I posing in front of the third waterfall.

Directions to and photos of all these falls will be added to our waterfall database shortly!

We had a very low-key 4th of July this year with some friends and their mini schnauzer coming over for burgers and beer. Riesling passed the time by making sure Pasha knew that Eric and I were completely off-limits for snuggling. :)

Riesling finished off her birthday steak bone that she started yesterday; she had to (not very) patiently sit and stay while I lit a candle in honor of her birthday. She was a good sport, but I think sticking out her tongue at me was uncalled for.

Unfortunately, it started thunderstorming here about a quarter to 9, just before all the fireworks shows were set to go off. It’s still raining over two hours later, so I’m glad we didn’t make special plans to go anywhere.