Finger Lakes

To keep things easy for a few days after the ICU excursion, we decided to tour New York's Finger Lakes by car. Carved by glaciers over two million years ago, the Finger Lakes consist of eleven long, narrow, roughly north-south lakes in central New York. Seneca, Cayuga, and Keuka are among the largest, so we set our sights on those.

At the top of Cayuga Lake sits Seneca Falls, the town visited by movie director Frank Capra and used as the setting for his fictional "Bedford Falls," in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," starring Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, and Lionel Barrymore. The movie is based on the true story of a good samaritan who risked, and lost, his life after jumping off a bridge into the freezing river below to rescue a young woman who had jumped in trying to take her own life. We love the movie and enjoyed touring the town and the "It's a Wonderful Life Museum." Capra's statements about the movie speak to the better angels of our nature, as in his quotes below.

In 1848, Seneca Falls also hosted the first meeting for women's suffrage and independence. Susan B. Anthony and others convened in the Methodist Wesleyan House to start the women's movement that lasted well into the 20th Century.

Women's Rights Meeting Sight, Seneca Falls, NY

The Lakes are also home to dozens of wineries because their waters are warmer than the surrounding air in winter, enabling the grapes to survive New York's harsh climate without freezing before they are harvested. Unlike the Napa Valley, many wineries here are small farms with limited production volume and little commercialism. The area is most famous for its Riesling, which is something we don't often consume at home. We enjoyed sampling and learning about Riesling and Gewurtztraminer wines and picked up a few for Adagio's cellar.