family visits
Aug. 29th, 2005 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingAunt Jan and Uncle Bob did not actually reach Ithaca by 1pm -- Seneca Falls (cradle of the US women's rights movement, yay!) proved more interesting than they expected -- and they arrived at 3pm instead. I gave the three-penny tour of my apartment, after which we went to Buttermilk Falls.
The actual waterfall was a disappointment, due to the summer-long drought the Northeast has been suffering under. Normally water pours down a slanted inclined and froths as it hits small snags, but when only a trickle is descending, all you see is damp rock. We decided to hike up the Gorge Trail, which, after Quite A Lot Of Stairs, led us to some more stereotypical waterfalls that had carved their way down through the shale and siltstone, forming potholes and pools as the water retreated back through the hill. We crossed the creek and came down the Rim Trail, which, true to its name, stayed well away from the water.
Then I gave them a brief driving tour of the Cornell campus, including a stop to listen to the 6pm concert of the McGraw Tower bells. After that, we did dinner at one of the local Indian restaurants, and Aunt Jan showed me pictures of her birth family. (She and my dad were adopted, see, and last year she got in touch with her birth relatives as part of her interest in genealogy.) They seem like good people.
I also got to see new pictures of my cousins and their kids, which was nice. Brian's son Logan, Eric's son Josh, and Eric's daughter Rebecca are the cutest kids in the world (with the possible exception of my cousin Benjamin on my mom's side of the family) and Brian's younger son, Geordie, looks, swear to god, like a miniature version of Conan O'Brien. It's freaky.
As I walked to the computer lab, it began to rain, which will be very good for the grass and other plants. And maybe tomorrow, Buttermilk Falls will look a bit more interesting.
The actual waterfall was a disappointment, due to the summer-long drought the Northeast has been suffering under. Normally water pours down a slanted inclined and froths as it hits small snags, but when only a trickle is descending, all you see is damp rock. We decided to hike up the Gorge Trail, which, after Quite A Lot Of Stairs, led us to some more stereotypical waterfalls that had carved their way down through the shale and siltstone, forming potholes and pools as the water retreated back through the hill. We crossed the creek and came down the Rim Trail, which, true to its name, stayed well away from the water.
Then I gave them a brief driving tour of the Cornell campus, including a stop to listen to the 6pm concert of the McGraw Tower bells. After that, we did dinner at one of the local Indian restaurants, and Aunt Jan showed me pictures of her birth family. (She and my dad were adopted, see, and last year she got in touch with her birth relatives as part of her interest in genealogy.) They seem like good people.
I also got to see new pictures of my cousins and their kids, which was nice. Brian's son Logan, Eric's son Josh, and Eric's daughter Rebecca are the cutest kids in the world (with the possible exception of my cousin Benjamin on my mom's side of the family) and Brian's younger son, Geordie, looks, swear to god, like a miniature version of Conan O'Brien. It's freaky.
As I walked to the computer lab, it began to rain, which will be very good for the grass and other plants. And maybe tomorrow, Buttermilk Falls will look a bit more interesting.
