I Love New York Travel

Photo taken last year from the King’s Garden at Fort Ticonderoga. It’s a nice break from the dull, gray and brown, rainy January outside my window.

The weather dudes just informed us that Lake Ontario is experiencing warmer than average temperatures. Lake Ontario fuels most of the the heavy “lake effect” snow that clobbers Upstate New York every winter. When cold air from Canada hit the warm water of Ontario, a roiling stew of snow develops. Some communities close to the lake and others inland but sitting along the wind currents get hit with tons of snow. Some towns get upwards of 10 feet in one storm. That’s a good storm. I am used to this kind of weather, so anything less than a foot of snow in a day is not really a storm to me. I know, some of you folks would be so freaked out if 5 or 10 feet of snow dropped on you, that you’d have to enter a residential rehab treatment facility! But I love the snow, especially the storms. Everything shuts down, no busy traffic.. it’s so beautiful and peaceful.

But today we have gray and brown. Hardly any snow at all this year. Although, with Ontario so warm… any cold current could change things very quickly. And we still have 2.5 months of winter left…

Another photo from our trip to Howe Caverns. This was my second favorite part of the tour (after the boat ride through the underground lake). The Winding Way, it’s called. It’s supposed to be the best example of water erosion in the world. It is indeed an amazing venture! And you do “wind” through the narrow passages. Some of the passages are so narrow that extremely large people or gals in maternity clothes because of pregnancy would not make it through. Some of the passages are very narrow indeed.

At one point, the husband stopped to hum in a portion of hollow stalactites. The sounds resonated throughout the entire winding way! It was very neat and all the others in the tour group were delighted. If you ever come to Upstate New York, you must see the caverns!

In case you haven’t heard, we went to Howe Caverns earlier this week, as I breathlessly and repeatedly reported on my blogs. I can’t help it! Howe Caverns is thrilling. Everyoine should visit, at least once. This was my third visit. :)

The beauty of the formations is breathtaking, and the process of how the cave developed is simply inspiring. Here, we visitors were all the same, dwarfed by the grandeur and vastness of the earth– no matter if you were a raleigh accountant or a computer scientist, a kid with Downs Syndrome or a blogger. :) And we had such folks in our group. :) We were all partners together, witnessing the amazing creation of the caverns. Simply amazing!

I will say– photography is difficult here. You can’t breathe while taking a photo or it will be blurry. But I disliked using the flash because the garish light looked ugly against the gray walls. So I don’t mind the double exposure. Hope you don’t. :)