Cayuga Lake

Long Point State Park

East shore, Cayuga Lake

Chris Olney of the Finger Lakes Land Trust just kayaked with me for 14 miles. He’s heading back now, a speck on the wide lake, having given me a Master Class in land conservation, stewardship, collaboration, and yes, family.

He rescued me from the park last night and we quenched our thirst at Garretts in Trumansburg and chatted it up with Mayor Rordan Hart, who looks 17 but clearly has it down cold. I told him my Erastus Corning story and he seemed amused.

Anyway, Chris is a remarkable young man and he and his wife Amy are raising terrific kids. We had a great dinner at Little Venice in Trumansburg, and I heard stories of family trips, foibles, idiosyncrasies, adventures, and hopes. All delivered with zest, heart, and love. I hope to be adopted by the Olneys one day.

This morning’s highlight was stopping at Bell Station, a private tract just north of the Milliken Station coal plant. The Finger Lakes Land Trust protects over 4000 feet of forever wild shoreline along this stretch, one of scores of parcels and properties Chris helps to manage and preserve.    

While walking along a path to a (now dry) falls, we met John Smith and Polly McClure of the Cayuga Trails Club. Folks, you can learn a lot about people by the way they greet each other – about respect, appreciation, and friendship – and listening to these three talk about their observations, work, and projects made me wish that all politics was local. Chris, John, and Polly are the best of what we can be when we put our minds and hearts to it.

The shorelines of the hilly Finger Lakes are bisected with ravines. From the water they are identified by slight depressions and undulations in the treeline. Going ashore at Bell Station and following a stream bed gave me a close-up look at how grand these stone conduits can be. If we were in the rainy season, the rush would have been awesome. As quiet as it is today, it’s a cathedral.

Woah. A C—130 just flew over the park at 200 feet. Am I in heaven, or what?

Chris is out of sight now, having crossed to the west side as I will, too. I’m just ruminating, filled with admiration for a guy whose ‘beat’ includes so much beautiful land and whose mission is to pay it forward. A great guy, a delightful family … a page in my Finger Lakes memory book I’ll want to go back to now and then. Thanks, Chris and Amy, and to Clare and Eloise, too, for sharing your dad on a Saturday.

And that coal plant? It looks like it could start up tomorrow, and the rumor is that monied interest would have it powering a Bitcoin mining operation, as there is on Seneca Lake. That would be a crime if it were to happen … but as the 1/6 hearings and the last administration has taught us, money and power and obfuscation have a way of abetting crimes that occur in plain sight.

Oops, sorry. I promised no politics. I’ll try harder.

So in a few minutes I’ll be back in the boat to try to find Paul’s house. I’ll camp in their magnificent yard tonight and head off to Otisco Lake very early in the AM. It’ll be a relatively short row (12-15 miles) but apparently there’s an interested constituency waiting for me, which is more interesting in itself than anything I can say to them. But if I can just try to describe how much I’ve come to admire the people I’ve met along the way, well, that will at least be something.

I’ll do a short day-end blog tonight, if I can find Paul’s!

Love, Al