Finger Lakes Road Trip: Watkins Glen & Seneca Lake

Many thanks to CM Communications and the Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel for hosting me on my Finger Lakes road trip. The support of businesses and organizations such as these helps me to create useful guides for readers like you. All opinions are my own.

“Wait,” my husband, Floren, says, and catches my arm. He holds out his hand, a blue surgical mask dangling from one fingertip. I take it and pull it over my nose and mouth. I’ll never get used to this, I think, and head for the coffee shop.

Four months into the pandemic that’s finally loosening its grip on New York State, and I still step out of my car and, as if nothing has changed, head toward the store or office, only to double back when I remember the one thing that seems to be keeping most of the world’s population healthy. On a Sunday morning, Floren and I have embarked on a four-day road trip, our first since the pandemic began, from our home in the upper Hudson Valley to the Finger Lakes and Thousand Islands. We’re relearning, moment by moment, what it means to be responsible travelers.

Finger Lakes Road Trip Day 1 Itinerary: On the Road to Watkins Glen

We leave behind the mountain vistas of the Route 88 highway for rural Route 206, where small houses crouch on what was once pasture and cropland. I keep having déjà vu moments; we must have driven this way on our trip to Corning four years ago. What I didn’t see last time around: a smattering of Confederate flags hanging limp in the clammy air. I squirm in my seat, knowing the color of my skin alone is what makes me welcome to some.

After a pause in Ithaca to visit friends, we pull into our first Finger Lakes road trip stop, Watkins Glen. We roll down scenic, lake-hugging Route 414, past a beach, where people are bobbing in the water or talking in small groups, up to their shins in Seneca Lake, trying to beat the 95-degree heat. Another turn, and we’re downtown, where neat rows of Revival architecture—Greek, Gothic, and Romanesque—form a brick procession down each side of the street.

At the far southern tip of the lake, just as the sky splits open in a colossal crack of thunder and lightning, we check into the Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel, all tall ceilings and studied dark-on-light elegance. We scrap our plans for a walk along the water and instead head for the wineries that cluster like brood hens along the eastern shore of Seneca Lake.

Our first stop is closed. So is the second, and the third. As it turns out, most of the wineries and distilleries close at 5:00 p.m. on Sundays. It’s still pouring, but even under a choleric sky, the lake is beautiful. I stare out my window at the rectangular rows of grapevines that break up meadows and croplands, at the diminutive old-timey farm stands and the enormous, sleek winery buildings that have sprung up to cater to the region’s many tourists.

Exploring Downtown Watkins Glen

The rain has stopped by the time we return to the village. Though most of the businesses are already closed, we walk along North Franklin Street, the heels of my sandals spraying cool drops from the sidewalk against my calves. Summer is usually festival time in town, but with most on hiatus, foot traffic is a fraction of its usual. It’s anyone’s guess what kind of a toll the pandemic will take on a town like this. Watkins Glen was once a destination famous for its lavish sanitarium, and traces of long-ago wealth cling around its edges—opulent trim on a commercial building, a lovingly preserved Art Deco theater, pricey boats. But it’s still only partway through a resurgence that began after a half century of economic hard knocks.

Floren and I point out interesting architecture, clever names, incongruous venues. There’s the Colonial Inn, an eccentric combination of hotel and ice cream shop. And the Micro Diner, sidled up against a hair salon, with signs proclaiming it the World’s Smallest Diner, and Watkins Glen: so cool heaven can wait. There’s also Scuteri’s, on East 4^th Street, reputed to be home to a killer cannoli, but which won’t reopen until after we leave on Tuesday. Travel serendipity—those moments of finding an unexpected treasure—seem harder to come by in our current state of flux.

We head back to the hotel for a seafood-focused dinner, and are seated at a table close to the host’s station. Despite the signs around the property outlining the governor’s face-mask mandate, there’s a female guest, pretty, barely into her twenties, standing at the entrance, mask around her neck. I’ll see her several more times throughout our stay, always maskless. I can’t help myself; I judge her, this woman I’ve never met, assuming her youth equates to carelessness, or at least a false sense of immortality. I soothe myself with a Dark & Stormy, sipping slowly, allowing the maraschino cherry to wallow in the rum that’s sunk to the bottom, before scooping it out with my fingers to slurp it off the stem.

Finger Lakes Road Trip Day 2 Itinerary: Watkins Glen State Park

In the morning, I slip out onto the balcony to take in the sunrise and the early-morning quiet of the lake. This is the time of day I like best, whether halfway across the world or at home in my wooded neighborhood, when I feel like nature has laid out every color, every texture, every sound and smell just for me. I’m still there, under the Creamsicle-colored sky, when Floren comes looking for me, a cardboard cup of Moroccan mint tea in each hand.

It’s going to be in the mid-90s again, so we go to Watkins Glen State Park before the heat and humidity make the quick slide from uncomfortable to insufferable. At 7:00 a.m., the parking lot contains only three other cars. I scan the plates: New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona.

The last time we were here, the main entrance was under construction, so we came in from the trailhead at the top of the park. The gorge was still, well, gorgeous, but hiking it any way but through the main entrance is an oversight. This direction affords the opportunity to read the historical placards, including those on Seneca Indian history, that have been installed along the nearly-new, accessible entrance trail.

We walk the Gorge Trail, marked for one-way traffic to promote social distancing, and strewn with delicate magenta wild rose petals shaken loose in yesterday’s storms. Birds and dragonflies alight on trees, the brambles of a raspberry bush, the stone wall. We walk toward and then under a waterfall, the sound of the water like drumming timpani in my ears. On the other side, we pause so Floren can retie his laces. I get lost in the signs of human interference: a half-empty bottle of Gatorade sitting on a wall, some wadded-up napkins in a damp, bleached ball on one of the steps, a stray green rubber flipflop trapped against a sharp edge of rock in the water of the gorge.

Then I glance over my shoulder and take in a sharp breath. The rising sun is burning away the morning fog, tilting beams of diffused light over the gorge. Whether by luck, natural alchemy, or both, we have this moment completely to ourselves.

Day 2 Itinerary: Kayaking Seneca Lake

When we exit the park around 9:00 a.m., the lot is more than half full. We return to the hotel for a quick breakfast and a change of clothes, then make the short walk to boardwalk to rent a two-person kayak.

Floren and I haven’t been kayaking in several years, but we confidently push off into Seneca Lake, him in the back and me in the front. It takes a while to develop a rhythm. We head under the first bridge we see, imagining secret coves ahead, and wind up getting our paddles tangled in the weeds around the Cargill Salt facility. By the time we return to open water, we’re about twenty minutes into the trip, the sun beating down and slicking the skin under our lifejackets with sweat. The bickering begins. Floren accuses me of not paddling hard enough; I blame him for not following my steering directions, leaving me to manage, poorly, the turning of the boat.

Travel serendipity—those moments of finding an unexpected treasure—seem harder to come by in our current state of flux.

But as we guide the kayak down past a pair of marinas, the argument dissipates. Boats nod rhythmically in their moorings, carried on wavelets of current that send them rocking against their neighbors in a quiet tock-tock or the squeak of vinyl fenders. We catch the occasional snippet of conversation from people on the docks, but otherwise it’s quiet—even when a gray-haired man putters past us on a JetSki, then releases the throttle as he reaches the open lake. A glossy-furred mink runs along the shore parallel to our boat, darting in and out of the undergrowth as if keeping an eye on intruders.

We pause for a few minutes and let the kayak float. I allow my hand to trail in the cool water. A solitary common loon glides past, turning one red eye in our direction, the spectacular geometry of its back and wings visible above the waterline. I reach for my phone to take a picture, then curse myself. I forgot to bring a dry bag on the trip and had to lock the phone in my car.

Without a phone, we’re also without time, and figure it’s probably a good idea to start heading back. We paddle the long way around a stone breakwall. Its metal tower is filled on every tier with double-crested cormorants, which open their wings like matadors flashing their capes before arrowing into the water for a snack.   

Day 2 Itinerary: Wine Tasting on the Seneca Lake Wine Trail

In the afternoon, we’re back at the wineries. While the entire Finger Lakes region is replete with vineyards, the density along the Seneca Lake Wine Trail—30-plus wineries, cideries, and distilleries—is especially impressive. The unusual geography of the area was carved out of the last Ice Age, and has created ideal conditions for growing wine grapes.  

Knowing my time on this Finger Lakes road trip would be limited, I’d reached out to a colleague, wine expert Nancy Koziol, for recommendations. We stop first at Atwater Estate Vineyards. At 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, they’re already fully booked in their indoor tasting room. The host offers to give us a tasting outside under the tent, with a view of the lake. We don’t mind being the only ones here, and take our time sampling five mostly fruity whites and pinots.

Next we head to the sustainability-focused Lamoreaux Landing Wine Cellars, where a table has just opened up. We follow the hostess down a sunny path toward a large tent, where a half-dozen picnic tables have been set near a long bar.

Floren and I claim seats on the same side of the table so we can share the view of vineyards, laden with immature grape clusters, that slope down to the lake. Our server walks us through a tasting, setting each flight on a barrel beside our table, then stepping away to let us taste. We linger, jotting notes with stubby golf pencils onto printouts smudged with droplets of wine. We’re both infatuated with a bright, peachy Moscato, and buy a bottle to take home.

On the way back into town, we stop for a pint of fresh cherries at an old-timey farm stand, rinse them with water from a bottle growing unpalatably warm in the car, and eat the sweet fruit, spitting the pits into our fists.

After dinner, we dawdle along the shoreline. Past the iconic red Seneca Lake Pier House, we walk out onto the flat-topped pier. The sun has begun its long descent through the sky, and we sit at the end of the pier, watching as the western horizon flushes with streaks of cotton-candy colors: pink, aqua, apricot.

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