Day 29, East Coast trip, Tues. Oct. 17, 2023 (Wolcott NY)
The weather held up today and even though it was cloudy, there was no rain. Today's travel from our campsite took us to the town of Sodus Point, New York, where there were two light houses. We packed our lunch as usual, and headed just some 20 miles distant.
But before we could get through Wolcott, we saw the town waterfall,and although it was the dry season, a veil of water was coming down.
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| Wolcott Falls |
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| One of thousands of rows of apples. |
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| A wide view of one Orchard |
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| Gotta show a few apples~! |
Our usual methods is to watch for anything unusual or something that tells about the culture or activity of the area. This area is is a center for apple growing in the state of New York so there were many apple orchards and workers in those orchards filling those big boxes with lots of different varieties of apples. Along those roads as we turned off the main road we saw a lot of color more than we had before. The orchards these days are using the small trees that grow only 7 or 8 feet tall so the pickers can stay on the ground while they pick. We did see some of them walking to work after their lunch, and they had what were bags that had shoulder straps and a quick release at the bottom that they can release into the boxes.
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| The keepers house is a museum, with lighthouse behind |
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| The buildup of the spit over the years. |
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| The Battle with the British (1813). British burned the town along with many along the coast. |
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| The breakwater light at Sodus |
We arrived at SODUS point and started at the museum which is in the keepers house attached to Lighthouse . This is the old lighthouse and the second one built at this location. In the past 100 years the lighthouse has moved from the point at Sodus, to being about a mile a way from what is now the point at Sodus. How could ths happen? The reason is that sand has continually filled in away from the lighthouse and build what's called a split or a sandbar if you will, on which now a community of residences has been built. At the newer point so to speak, the other breakwater lighthouse was built out on a levy or dike and warns the ships seeking shelter of the harbor there.
We cruised around town a bit looking for other vistas and found a few especially the parking lot at the beach where there were many cormorants and seagulls perched on the dike. While watching we also saw a swooping bird which we identified as a Merlin which we have not seen on the trip
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| The old Mash Mill at Sodus |
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| Apple boxes with a dutch grower's name. |
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| A 10 (ten) point deer grazing on road side (5 minutes he stayed) |
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| Concord grapes at Thorpe's Vineyard and Winery |
On the way home we tried to locate some cliffs that were nearby but it would have taken a 1 1/2 mile walk to get to them and they were not visible from any road. That led us to a satellite community about a mile away where there were some views of Lake Ontario and a small bay with good reflections with Tundra Swan, swimming there.
There was a winery in that community and we drove by it and saw that the Concord grapes were just about ready to be plucked (picked). The winery was called Thorpe's Winery. (No samples as they were closed!)
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| Barn number 1 |
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| BArn number 2 |
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| It's a Mack! What year? |
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| Elizabethan home in Sodus NY |
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| Barn number 3 |
So it was a good drive on a cloudy day with some color, lots of apples, a few lighthouses, and an interesting conversation with a birdwatcher who comes to that spot often, as the birds frequent the beach area during the year. We were a little late to see some surf scoters the day before. We had seen some a few days back, so we didn't feel too bad.
Found a few barns on the way back so Ruth had some subjects for her camera. We arrived back home about midafternoon, and had time to download photos and catch up on some notes.
Supper was a new favorite of ours of tuna fish and potatoes sliced. We top that off with blueberry pie that we bought from the Ontario Orchard Store.
. Tomorrow we head for another national wildlife refuge nearby at Montezuma. It has some drives so we should be able to avoid any long trails.
Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow.
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