Introduction
During the week after Easter weekend, my significant other and I traveled up to the upstate New York area. We stayed over at a neat cabin in Jamesville, checked out the Syracuse area, and explored around Skaneateles. Upstate New York is rather infamous for its intense winters thanks to the lake-effect snow. We were pretty lucky that the weather was sunny throughout most of the trip. Heck, it even felt like summertime. At one point, the temperature hit the 80s (or in the upper 20s if you're a metric person).
Elly's Acre Farm
The cabin is actually behind a large farm called Elly's Acre Farm. When we first got there, the first thing we saw was sheep. Lot and lots of sheep. It was an interesting experience hearing them bleat the first thing in the morning, but the overall environment is peaceful and relaxing. Martha was a great hostess and offered us a tour around the farm. Before we left, we bought some of her eggs because the ones that we got in the cabin's fridge were pretty good.
Sunset shot of the Elly's Acre Farm's sheep.
Skaneateles
We visited the small town of Skaneateles for some food and to check out the Skaneateles Lake. Doug's Fish Fry had some good seafood. After lunch, we went to the public pier to look at the lake. The waves were actually on the intense side, but the overall scenery looked very nice.
Skaneateles Lake and the public pier (left). If you look carefully enough, there is a duck riding the waves.
We drove up to Anyela's Vineyards to try out some wine. The Finger Lakes region is known for its white wines, so we ordered flight of them to try out. I actually am not a fan of most wines and more of a beer/IPA person. However, I was impressed with the flavor of the 4 wines I tried out. Before we left, we bought two bottles of half the wines we tasted.
Green Lakes Park
My favorite part of the trip was walking around Green Lakes Park. These lakes have a very beautiful turquoise color as a result of the way the light reflects from the water. Another interesting property of these lakes are that they run extremely deep. This causes the cold, dense water at the bottom to not intermix with the shallow, warm water. As a result, the lakes are divided into micro-habitats that are hospitable to only specific species.
The Green Lakes of upstate NY are oligotrophic lakes.
Thanks to my phone's water resistance, I was able to take a few underwater shots and it really looks like a whole another world down there. The turquoise, especially, becomes much more pronounced.
An above surface picture of one of the Green Lakes.
Underwater shot of the lake. The turquoise is much stronger underneath the surface.
Closing Thoughts
The great thing about the Syracuse area is that the city is nearby, but it doesn't take that long of a drive to find plenty of nature. It's pretty much the best of both worlds. We were pretty fortunate that the weather was sunny because in upstate New York, that doesn't happen often. There a bunch of other natural parks, Finger Lakes, and wineries we haven't been to, so we plan on revisiting the region in the future.
