Stay-cation

 Joseph had a week off work in August, and we decided to do a stay-cation and take day trips to various places in New York.  It was an exhausting week, but fun.  I'm a home body so being gone multiple days in a row when I still have laundry, cooking, etc to keep up with wears me out.  We actually had a "rest" day so I could catch up on all of my "at home" tasks.  I think I would prefer to actually leave town for a few days to get more of a vacation, but this was still a lot of fun.

Day 1: 

Split Rock Quarry--I don't have a lot to say about this trip because I was on a different day trip.  Joseph and the kids took a hike to an old mine/quarry.  Apparently it was a much longer hike than expected they ended up hiking 4 miles instead of 2.  Joseph said they were all good sports about it and Eden needed to be carried just a little at the end. 

While everyone was at Split Rock Quarry I was taking one last trip with my friend Mari before she moved.  The birthplace of Lucille Ball is in Jamestown, NY.  It's about 3 hours from Syracuse.  Mari always wanted to visit the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz museum, but knew the long drive and then a museum visit with her kids wouldn't go over well.  I told her I would go with her and I wouldn't complain about the drive so that's what we did.  

We started with breakfast at a crepe place in Rochester, NY.  It was super yummy.  I gave Mari a going away present wrapped in Avengers paper.  I didn't have anything other than this paper or Christmas paper.  I told Mari she's a super hero.

Breakfast was delicious.  I'm more of a sweet breakfast person over savory, but the eggs, cheese and sausage were still tasty.

On the way to Jamestown I ordered tickets for us.  I thought I was buying tickets for the Lucille/Desi museum, but I had actually bought tickets for the National Comedy Center.  We plead our case at the National Comedy Center saying we only had time for the Lucille Ball museum and could we please have our money back.  They employee was very kind and friendly and we obtained our refund.  She did say that the comedy center is well worth a visit so if you ever find yourself it Jamestown, NY visit the Comedy Center for me.  

Around Jamestown there are murals of famous Lucille Ball episodes. We tracked down 3 of the 4 murals.

Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Museum

One half of the museum had costumes and sets from the show.

This accordion door reminded me of my Grandma and Grandpa's house. If memory serves me correctly in the basement of their house they had a door like this going into an unfinished part of their basement.

Living room and kitchen sets.

Costumes

The second half of the museum was about the personal lives of Lucille and Desi.  I didn't know anything about either of them.  I appreciated learning about them and how revolutionary Lucille Ball was in the media industry.  

The producer in charge of a radio show wanted Lucille to star in My Favorite Husband and turn it into a TV program they cast a man other than Desi as her husband.  Lucille said she would only do the show if Desi was cast as her husband on the show.  The producer said no because he didn't think the American people at the time would approve of a red headed white woman being married to a Cuban.  Lucille and Desi started their own production company, created the I Love Lucy show and it was a huge success.  Lucille also broke other television boundaries by incorporating her first pregnancy into the show--hence the arrival of Little Ricky on the show.

The couple's marriage ended in divorce, but they were friendly and supportive of 

each other's careers the rest of their lives.

We left Jamestown and met our friend Jackie for a late lunch in Buffalo where Jackie now lives. 

Mari and I have a tradition of eating cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate important life events...babies arriving and usually our birthdays.  We took one last trip to The Cheesecake Factory to end our day on a delicious note!  We stopped at TCF in Buffalo and then headed home.  We were leaving Buffalo during rush hour traffic, Kimball was texting me, and I was supposed to navigate all at the same time.  We found our way to I-90, but we ended up going the wrong direction....for an hour!  Mari and I have so much fun together that we sometimes get distracted.  It wasn't until we saw a huge Native American statue that we realized we were going in the wrong direction.  We saw that statue on the way to Jamestown and we weren't supposed to see it again!  We had a good laugh about our  mistake and turned around as soon as we could.  That extended our day together by 2 hours and when we arrived home we still sat in my driveway talking for another 20 minutes until my big kids came out to drag me inside.  

I will dearly miss Mari, but we still stay in touch and we will see each other again.

Day 2: Pratt's Falls

We have been to Pratt's Falls on numerous occasions, but we decided to go because the boys wanted to practice their archery and Pratt's Falls has archery targets...or they used to.  When we arrived we had a picnic lunch, did a short hike and then the boys went to practice archery while the girls did another short hike.  We hadn't made it very far when the boys joined us.  It was still a fun outing and a nice day.

Day 3: Wolcott Falls and Chimney Bluffs State Park

On Wednesday we decided to go North-west to Lake Ontario.  We stopped to see Wolcott Falls since we were passing right by it.  It has been a dry summer so the falls were just a trickle.  We still had fun throwing rocks into the pool at the base of the falls.  

Chimney Bluffs is amazing!  It is a protected natural sand dune.  We hiked a trail above the dunes to enjoy the views.

Holding up the tree.

After our rim trail hike we had lunch and walked along Lake Ontario so we could see the formations from the beach.

It was a cooler day with temperatures in the low-70s.  The kids didn't seem to mind the cold water.

The sand formations weren't nearly as pretty from the beach.

Day 4: Niagara Falls

Our last trip of the week was to Niagara Falls. We just went to the American side since the Canadian border is closed right now.  We had a good time.  We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist.  I decided if we were going to go we needed to go before Kimball's 13th birthday--which was two days later-- when we would have to pay for an adult ticket for him.  Lincoln and Annika were also free until their birthday so went before all of the birthdays. 

I honestly don't enjoy the Maid of the Mist.  I forgot just how much I didn't like it, but I don't like being wet or wind blown and that is what the ride is all about.  Lincoln loved it.  He didn't wear his hood at all and his head was soaked and part of his shirt.  The girls tolerated the wind and water.  Next time I'll happy send my family on the boat and I will just wait for them on the observation deck!

We left about 6 am to make it to Niagara Falls right when it opened at 9:00.  We wanted to avoid long lines if we could and limit our Covid exposure.  We were on the second boat ride of the day and we didn't have to wait long at all.  Things had really picked up as we left the boat ride.  We saw much longer lines. 

Lincoln loves Star Wars so when we stopped in a gift shop he posed with Darth Vader.

My favorite part of visiting Niagara Falls is walking the paths before the falls.  I love seeing the rushing water and beautiful scenery.  We walked across a few bridges to some islands in the middle of the river to some observation decks at the edge of the Falls. It was a long walk (well, I didn't' think it was long, but the kids said it was so it must have been longer than I thought.) and the kids got tired.

Eden was tired of walking so Kimball carried her for a time.

It was a great week, but I was very happy to have it calmer the following week.