Ithaca

First off, the second day in Bar Harbor was pretty mellow. We drove up to Orono where Shaw & Tenney is. That is a little shop that hand makes wooden oars. Pete has a rowing shell and uses their oars. Sam spent some time with us to show us how they are made. He also showed us the boat he and his brother built last winter.

We had a busy day yesterday (Friday July 15). The sky was nice and clear with cool temps in Bar Harbor so we loaded up the plane and started heading west. Pete brought the plane up to 6,500 feet since we were going to go over some hills in NH and VT. There were some clouds around those hills so we had to do a little zig zagging to stay out of them.

After passing those hills the landscape turned to farmland and then to wooded areas. Very different terrain over the 250 miles between Bar Harbor and Saratoga. We had a short stop in Saratoga for gas and lunch then continued on another 120 miles to Ithaca. On that leg we passed about 10 miles south of Hamilton, NY (anyone?).

It seems weekends in Ithaca are pretty busy because most of the hotels were booked up. There is a wine festival going on not far away. After we found a room, we headed over to Cornell University where Pete went for both his undergrad and graduate degrees.

We walked around the campus a bit and one of the stops was at the Sigma Phi fraternity house. Pete was a member of Sigma Phi when he was an undergrad. Since it's summer there wasn't much going on but Larry was in the house. Larry is a current member of Sigma Phi and let us in to look around the house after Pete told him who he was. Larry even greeted Pete with the secret handshake!

When Pete was back at Cornell for grad school, he and Peggy lived in a trailer up the hill behind campus. So we drove back there to see the spot where they lived. Back then one of the treats they had was a trip down the hill to Joe's restaurant. A big plate of spaghetti and meatballs was only a couple bucks. Well Joe's is still there! So we had dinner there on Friday night.

On Saturday we went over to the new boathouse that the Cornell sailing team uses on Cayuga Lake. The boathouse manager gave us a tour. He even let us take a boat out for a sail.

After sailing we walked down the street a short way to meet the new sailing coach. Brian took over the team last year and did very well, so Pete was very excited to meet him. Brian is a young guy who just got married a couple months ago. He and his new wife bought a house just down the shore from the boathouse. Brian's parents were also there helping them work on the house.