August 7, 2000

One year ago: I lament over lost sections of my memory, and wish I could defrag my brain.

Saturday, Jim and I decided to just take a drive. No real destination, but it was a beautiful day and we wanted to get out and enjoy it. The key factor was that it wasn't too hot -- our car doesn't have air conditioning, so if it's over like 80 degrees and sunny, long drives quickly become unbearable. But Saturday in our neck of the woods was sunny and breezy, but not too hot. Perfect driving weather. We headed west on Routes 5 and 20, towards the Finger Lakes area. We went through Skaneateles, which was packed, and then through Auburn, and then headed south, until we ran into Cayuga Lake. See picture to the left of Cayuga Lake.

We went through Aurora, NY, home of MacKenzie-Childs and Wells College. Aurora is really a beautiful town with lots of gigantic houses. We drove through the Wells College campus. It's a small, private, all-women college. They recruited me pretty heavily when I was in high school -- I think they even offered me a scholarship. But at the time, I wanted nothing to do with an all-female college. The campus was pretty nice, being right on the lake and all. I talked to Mary about it later, and she said the dorm rooms are beautiful, and that the head girl, or RA, or something gets a huge room with a fireplace in it! Can you imagine? My dorm room was standard early cinder block. We drove up to the top of the hill, and there was a golf course on the campus too, with lots of expensive cars in the parking lot. I think it was the first college campus that I've been on that was smaller than the one I attended.

Next, we stopped at Long Point State Park. I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to get up close and personal with the lake, instead of just looking at it from the road. I thought there might even be some sort of concession stand, since we hadn't had lunch yet. I didn't even think about the fact that there might be a charge to get in. There was a booth in the entrance, but it looked deserted, so we drove right by. And a woman came out and started waving us down -- turns out there was a $6 admission. Then I felt bad -- I really had only wanted to stop in for a few minutes, but after paying the admission, I felt like we should stay for a while and get our money's worth, because I'm cheap like that. We walked the shoreline, and out on the pier, and I took some pictures. There were lots of families there with coolers and jetskis, and there was a boat launch. If we had planned ahead, it wouldn't have been a bad place to spend the day with a book and a cooler. But we were counting on serendipity, and thus didn't come prepared. Plus, we were hungry. So we pressed on.

We were nearly to Ithaca at this point, at the southern tip of the lake, and Jim revealed that he had never been to Ithaca. So I figured, why not? But we needed something to eat first. I saw this restaurant by the side of the road called Rogue's something that looked inviting, so we stopped. They had seating on their wide front porch, so we got an outside table. There were hanging plants to give a little privacy, and there were nice cool breezes. It was really pleasant. Jim got the French Dip sandwich and I got a turkey sandwich, which were both pretty good, but it was really the atmosphere that made the restaurant. The weird thing was that this other couple walked in and hesitated next to our table, waiting to be seated. I looked up, and the female half of the couple looked familiar, and said hello to me. Turns out she lived next door to me in college one year, but I still can't remember her name. It was just weird to see her, because I immediately recognized her even though it's probably been at least six years since I last saw her. Jim recognized her too. These pictures of Jim and I were taken while we waited for our food to arrive.

After eating, we continued on to Ithaca. I wanted to see the campus of Cornell, because I almost went to college there, and yet I had never seen the campus. I had been to Ithaca before, but just the downtown areas and Ithaca College. After a few false starts, we finally found the campus proper, found somewhere to park and walked around. We checked out the football stadium, which was pretty large. Then we checked out a footbridge, and Jim asked if that was the bridge people jump from to commit suicide. Cornell apparently has one of the highest suicide rates of any university. It was pretty high, so it's possible. Of course, every bridge we saw after that, Jim asked the same question. Then we got to a really low footbride, with a drop of maybe two feet, and I said, "Hey, do you think this is one of the suicide bridges?" Jim said, "No, this is more of a 'cry for help' bridge. When the person just wants to pretend to commit suicide, but not actually die." Jim is funny.

After walking around the campus for a while and admiring the view (and taking the pictures above -- the status is Herakles, but the way), we headed downtown to the Ithaca Commons, an open-air street mall type of thing. There were lots of teenagers hanging out there, and they even had a little turntable set up and were DJing to the shoppers. They were so cute. We went in a number of shops, including every bookstore, and then enjoyed some milkshakes. We finally headed out for the drive home. It was a long day, but a fun one. I told Jim we would have to go back to Ithaca sometime to go to the Moosewood restaurant. I have the cookbooks, but I've never been to the restaurant!