The Finger Lakes

The Finger Lakes Region

One of the craziest things about this trip is that I haven’t had to have any travel plans. It feels rather odd. I don’t need to be anywhere at any particular time, so if I am going right and decide to turn left instead, no one needs to know but me. I just…go. Sometimes I have one plan and then someone I meet will tell me I have to see something, and my plans change on the spot.

After seeing Mike and his friends at the Rock in River Stoneskipping Festival in Franklin, Pennsylvania, I wanted to see my friend in upstate New York. I examined the map and found a perfect halfway point…Corning, New York, home to the Corning Museum of Glass. I was aware of the museum because they collected some of my old friend Frank Zika’s works.

Keuka Lake

Cold in the Bones

Corning is in the Finger Lakes region, which is exactly what it sounds like – 11 long, skinny lakes in deep glacial valleys. I stayed at a KOA in Hammondsport/Bath, which was in the middle of a corn field outside of Bath, quite lovely and quiet, with only a hint of manure smell from the nearby dairy farms.

In the Midwest, summer is so hot and sweaty that it feels like it will always be summer. You can’t even imagine it being cool. But the Finger Lakes, even in August, have the feeling that winter is just waiting an inch under the surface to reemerge and rule the land. Even when it is hot, you know the cold is there.

When I was there, the weather was perfect, with just a hint of fall in the air. I got to swim each afternoon looking out into the cornfield and watching the cloud-shadows play across the trees.

The Corning Museum of Glass

The Corning Glass Museum is ok. And by ok, I mean jaw-dropping. Stunning. Crazy. Lots of my photos of the artwork here and here. People do things with glass that leave you shaking your head and walking around in circles muttering “How do they DO that?’

In addition to a large collection of the newest modern art glass, they have a historic collecting stretching back 35 centuries, a contemporary gallery, an area focusing on industry and science, and a hot shop where artists demonstrate creating a work from start to finish in under an hour.

YOU MUST GO THERE. That is all. It’s worth the trip.

The Corning Museum Hot Shop

If you saw the Netflix Show “Blown Away,” you’ll recognize this whimsical sausage-fest by winner Deborah Czeresko.