Pennsylvania and the continuing summer

I realize I haven't posted here in a while, but that's mostly because nothing extremely noteworthy has happened. But enough stuff has built up now to warrant an update. I've decided summer here in Ithaca is very nice. We get a lot of 70-80 degree, sunny days with a slight breeze here and there that makes things perfect for outdoors activities. Upstate NY is idyllic this season (once you get out of Ithaca) with rolling, tree covered hills divided by valleys with small dairy farms and rustic, dilapidated barns.

Cornell Plantations, again... I have a million flower pics now.


While research is keeping me rather busy still, I still am trying to get out and enjoy as much as possible. I've been running a bit, and sometimes head up to the plantations to search for ever stranger and brighter flowers. I've been back to Watkins Glen (see previous post), and today I went with a friend to a little unofficial drive-in at Horseheads, a medium-size town about half an hour SW of Ithaca. There were some nice classic cars there, but I didn't take any pictures - mostly because I didn't want to come off as a total out-of-towner. (It was all local folk of course)

More interesting flora at the plantations...

We ended up about 20 minutes south of there in Pennsylvania, so I can add that to the list of states I've visited. (I don't count airport layovers!) So that makes 19 total states, but that number should get a lot higher here in the next month or so. I have a one-way ticket to Seattle July 18th, to visit friends and family, buy a car, pack up my stuff that's been across the country from me a year now, and drive back to NY. But, to make things more interesting I have a conference in Austin in early August, so either I take about a week to do the drive across the north part of the country, or I take longer and make Austin part of the itinerary. I'm leaning towards the latter right now, but that could easily change depending on a number of things.

Someone missed the camouflage memo

Coupled with a conference in Chicago later this summer and a tentative trip to Maine in the early Fall, that number of states could quite literally double. Exciting. I'm afraid the last two summers' adventures (SoCal05 and Eur06) and my current NY06/07 experience have left me with the travel bug, so this summer's US07 adventure should fit right in! I'll keep a separate blog for it, (even though it will only last a couple weeks) and link to the posts from here. So watch for a bunch of posts coming towards the end of July!






...and, you guessed it. another flower at the plantations. They certainly do make more interesting pictures than the green/grey of the gorges.