One New York Life

I’m a huge fan of Amtrak. I understand it’s not convenient or timely transportation in most of the country, but it’s fantastic and more reliable than airlines in the Northeast. Of course, in the big cities, they did smart things like put the train station in the middle of town. In upstate towns, the train stations are about as far from the center of town as possible. In the case of Albany, they smartly put the train station actually in another town across the river. Albany, New York — city management with incumbents that couldn’t possibly be more worthless for 20 years strong.

Regardless, Mama Yard dropped me off at the Albany train station and I sat and watched Terminator: Rise Of The Machines (rating: meh) on the painfully long 3-hour ride to Syracuse where I met PLR. She had flown out to Rochester days previous to visit family (and really, if she wrote for the blog, it would be an excellent blog post. Her first flight was canceled and she was rescheduled in to one later in the day — that was then delayed over eight hours and didn’t leave JFK until 2 am. Arriving Rochester at 4 am the car rental stand and the rest of the airport was not so much “open.” Addendum to above: the Penn Station to Rochester train is a 7-hour ride. In this case, not really an option… although she actually would have saved time doing it). She arrived to pick me up in a rather crappy Pontiac G6 from Avis. No XM Radio? No EZ-Pass? No GPS? Rochester rental cars differ greatly from their Manhattan counterparts.

We climbed in the car and stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts (Can I get a “woot!” for a Starbucks-free vacation!) and got on I-90 west to head toward our first stop — The Cayuga Lake Wine Trail. Now, as I’ve mentioned previously, getting anywhere in Central New York actually takes longer than forever. Example: the drive from the Syracuse Train Station to our first stop is a rather pedestrian 60 miles. Only 37 miles are spent on the Thruway (In New York lingo: that’s I-90 between Buffalo and Albany and I-87 between Albany and New York City). Traffic moves on this asphalt farm divider at a healthy 70 MPH. However, the time spent looking at nothing makes everything seem like it takes significantly longer. PLR picked me up at 12:30. We got to Goose Watch Winery at about 2:00. I swear we traveled through no less than 4 time zones. We could have gotten to Sonoma Valley in the same time.

Goose Watch Winery: This place was suggested by PLR’s aunt and uncle who know themselves some wine trips. Her uncle suggested this was just “a few minutes down the road” once you hit the lake. If you look at the map above (fig. 1), you will see that the distance spent on Rt-89 is, in fact, only 14 miles. We were, apparently, traveling at 1 mile per hour. This suggests to me that if you live in Central New York, your perception of time skews. It’s the Lost Island in the middle of the state. Goose Watch offers a $1 for eight sample tasting. We’ll call the eight count a “soft cap”. More a suggestion really. Admittedly, we were visiting out of season and were the only customers so this might be stricter in season. This was my first wine tasting (outside a liquor store or Best Cellars) but PLR tells me the Long Island Wineries aren’t nearly this cheap. Eventually we were joined by two Canadian ladies and shared a lengthy discussion about how much alcohol could be transported across the border without getting in trouble. A question we collectively decided the bartender at the tasting should be able to answer but couldn’t. I tried Cream Sherry and Strawberry Wine for the first time. In what became a theme at the various wineries, we spent about $50 on wine. In other news, eight ten shots of wine on an empty stomach is surprisingly potent.

As we left Goose Watch, we had the first discussion on whether or not driving was OK. Conclusion — it was.

Knapp Winery: Right around the corner from Goose Watch (“Around the corner” = “about a mile“) is Knapp Vineyard and Restaurant. This was a perfect time for lunch as more wine samples before food were thought to be a dangerous prospect. For the appetizer, we split Baked Brie en Croute. This was brie cheese wrapped in puff pastry and baked then served in a dish with fruit, crackers, and port-poached pears. I can’t adequately describe how tasty this was. I love brie and puff pastry is on the short list with bacon as something that makes everything better. For the entree, I went with the Top Round Sandwich — an herb-encrusted roast beef served with caramelized onions and roasted red peppers (also on the short list). PLR got the Crab Cakes. A little spicier than we expected but delicious nonetheless. Great little restaurant with one of the only good servers we had for the entire trip. After lunch we went to the tasting room for another $1 tasting. Here I went with Champagne Brut and Peach wine amongst the more standard wine selections. What I’m quickly learning is I like white wines with high “residual sugars”. That’s sweeter vs. dryer. Obviously, PLR likes the exact opposite because I’m pretty sure one of her life’s goals is “dislike everything Tom likes”.

After Knapp, the two samplings and glasses of wine with lunch started catching up. I made the executive decision to put my two-hundred and cough pound frame behind the wheel. It may or may not have been a good decision. I can’t tell. This marked the first complaint about lack of public transportation. It also marked the first time I convinced myself that State Troopers must be lax on the DWI thing when all the region’s income is based on getting folks drunk.

Regardless — I used to think that the Thruway was like driving through vast wastelands of nothing. The area between Knapp Winery and Belhurst Castle redefined this idea. The only thing I can compare it to is the drive between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. While driving, there is nothing but sky in front, behind, and to the sides. I remember driving back to Las Vegas and thinking it must be an odd sort of road hypnotism when you’re driving in to stars, away from stars, and next to stars — and nothing but stars. It’s a very odd scene for those of us who are surrounded at all times by different terrain. Even driving along the Thruway, there are uphills and downhills to break things up a little bit. Not so driving between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. It’s flat, completely unobstructed land. It’s flat farms subdivided by roads. The occasional house dots the landscape. It’s a weird green ocean with a giant blue dome. I was unaware this existed anywhere in New York and, yet again, reminded me that half of this state should be considered New England and the other half should be considered something else entirely.

It also featured this little slice of ridiculousness well after the drive had zombified me. This is one of those fun little locations with conflicting signs and arrows and multiple routes indicating you should probably turn around and go back the way you came.

Up next — Belhurst Castle!