July 31st

I went to the Dr today about my ankle. I hurt it 2 weeks ago but never got it checked. I don't know what I did but I'm thinking volleyball had something to do with it. It hurts to walk on, drive, go up and down stairs etc, and is swollen. It's actually getting more swollen as the time goes on. So the Dr thought I fractured it and then sent me to Zwanger for an X-ray. Of course I had to sit next to an opinionated lady from Merrick. I couldn't wait for them to call her name to get her away from me! (She was there first). I was there like 1 1/2 hours.

It's not fractured. I don't know what's wrong with it though. They called the Dr's office and they were already closed so I have to wait until Monday to find out. It's never a dull moment!

July 30th

Today was spent at the doctors with Dad and Ann. NOT FUN! The best part of the day was actually at night when I went to Andrea's for LouAnn's surprise retirement party. It was so nice getting together with the girls again. We always have so many laughs. Merrie made a BEAUTIFUL cake for the occasion. My cell phone doesn't take good pictures but it's the best I could do!! I thought those were candles on the top at first. They are Cheesecake Pops! DELICIOUS!!! So talented!

Brooke will be VERY happy when she gets home. I actually took Sammy for a walk after I got home from Andreas! I'm not such a bad person after all! He just sits by the door whinning waiting for her to come home. It's kind of sad.

July 29th

I picked up Brooke and Sammy from the airport. I was very surprised that Sammy was calm. Brooke didn't have to give him a pill to make him drowsy for the plane ride. He got some shots the day before and he was out of it since then.

I gave her the dog treats that we got from the Greyhound Event that included 2 bandanas. Brook put them on Sammy and he just laid there! Yup... he's out of it. Normally he's a

wac- a -doodle dog!

July 28th
Brooke will be coming tomorrow. I wanted to catch up on this stinkin blog which took HOURS! Now that the day is half over, I have to finish straightening up, food shop, make dinner and then head to volleyball.

July 27th
It's back to reality! Tons of mail to be read, clean the house, do the laundry etc. I hate doing housework!!

July 26th

We're leaving today. We packed up the tent and all the equipment etc in 15 minutes! We amaze ourselves sometimes! We figured that we'd drive the route of the garage sale and complete the 50 miles and then head home. There was hardly anyone selling today. I guess they all did very well yesterday! I bought 3 CD's for $2 and that's it. We got home at around 4 o'clock.

As we're sitting on the couch chatting with Alyssa, she said that she has to tell us something. OH NO!!!

She got a kitten! What a way to end the vacation! She named it

Huckleberry TK Velociraptor Zukowski... Huck for short. The TK stands for "trash kitten" after a cat that lived in the garbage behind her apartment at school "TK Lionel" and since Huck is from the streets, she thought it was fitting. Also, he sounds like a velociraptor when he whines.

July 25th

Today was the big day... The 50 MILE garage sale from Montezuma to Homer!! What fun. We started out at 8 AM even though it started at 7AM! We took our time, stopping all along the way to view the junk everyone was selling! We drove to a house or a bunch of houses, got out of the car, looked and got back in. We did that for 3 HOURS and it really got exhausting! The stuff that people were selling went from little 25 cent items all the way up to tractors, cars and canoes.

For the day, I got a Tupperware Marinade container (which I've wanted to get the replacement of because I melted mine) for 50 cents, a holiday set of pot holders and dish towels that still had the tags on them for 25 cents and a cookbook that I talked them down from 75 cents to 50 cents because it looked like a dog chewed the corner. (I hope it was a dog!) I had to get this cookbook because it was the Disney Family recipe book and LouAnn's Steak on a Stick recipe was in it from the contest that she won from Family Fun Magazine! I also got a flower pot with a grape motief for $2. That was my purchases! PJ got a new portable drill that interchanges in to a sander and a few other things for $20. It was still sealed with the tags on it. I enjoyed seeing some of the houses. They went from 200 year old houses with barns and farms to beautiful houses on the lake.

We decided enough was enough, lets hit the wine trail! My favorite part was tasting the food and getting the recipes.

July 24th

We went to the Wegmans in Seneca Falls for breakfast. What a dissapointment! It's NOTHING like the one in Ithaca. It's 1/4 of the size, PJ noticed that the muffins were 1/2 the size and there was only a small space for a few tables and chairs in a corner. Boy were we spoiled!! We bought salags to have for lunch and kept them in the cooler. This was one of our favorites of Wegmans... their Asian Salad.

We started on our Greyhound Wine Trail Event. It was only including 3 wineries for today because typically they start on Saturday but the were allowing people to check in to Montezuma on Thursday night and then do Long Point, King Ferry and Six Mile creek on Friday. We decided early on that we would only have the food samples, get the recipes and maybe taste the first 2 wines but NOT the 8 that are included at EACH winery!

The dogs were very well behaved so I was a happy camper. They didn't bother anyone.

When we got to King Ferry Winery, we were very happy to see that Malva was still the greeter. She's 93 years old and as cute as can be. She's starting to loose it though.

This year there are painted barrels at each of the wineries around all of the finger lakes that you can actually bid on in a silent auction. http://www.paintedbarrels.com/english/categorydisplay.php?cid=163

This one is from King Ferry Winery and painted by the owner of the winery. She made the spout and bucket 3D which makes it even more beautiful!

July 23rd

Today we packed up the tent etc for our move to Cayuga Lake State Park. We had breakfast at Wegman's again.

Before we left the area, we drove through the campus to look for something and what do I see.... they painted the Alliums from Mimm's Garden!! They must have read my mind the other day!!

We set up our tent etc. We were like the only ones in that area. Our poor tent is starting to show it's age. It's a canvas Morsan tent from 1978 or '79. They don't make them like that anymore!

We had lunch at Castle Grisch Winery on Seneca Lake. We sat outside on the deck overlooking the vineyards and the lake. We both ordered Jaegerschnitzel. It was delicious.

Before we left we received free tickets to the Greyhound Event with the Cayuga Wine Trail. We didn't choose those to go with our season pass but I guess they didn't sell enough tickets. I was a little leary because of the dogs but figured we'd try. We checked in at Montezuma Winery at dinnertime. We got our free glasses and dog treats for Brooke's dog. They were having a Chicken BBQ with music so we decided to have dinner there instead of cooking at the campsite. The bugs at the campsite were terrible!

July 22nd

We went for a walk in the Taughnnock Falls Gorge. It was really dry this year. It's a 3/4 of a mile walk in the water, on the gorge surface only to get to a beautiful site... the falls!

I love some of the scenery around here. You have the land and you have the water. What more could you want!

July 21st

PJ and I found a new favorite spot for breakfast... Wegmans! (Our FAVORITE store since the '70!!) The Tastings Cafe that overlooks the isles is also for people to sit at, read a newspaper, use their laptop and bring whatever food you purchased at the store to eat! So we each got coffee, PJ got a HUGE muffin and I got a bagel... all for $5.01

Afterwards, we went to the Floriculture Field Day Test Gardens. These gardens are test gardens for different companies to test their seeds and how well they perform in different areas. Cornell is the test garden of the northeast. It was nice to walk around, just the 2 of us, and see the new plants.

After a while, the sun started to really beat down and it got way too hot to be standing in a field. we decided to go swimming at the campground.

Dinner was at Viva Taqueria. We love this place because it's right across the street from The Commons and you can sit outside and people watch. We both ordered our usuals... the Super Smothered Burrito... PJ's with Ranchero Sauce and mine with Tomatillo Sauce.

It comes with Escabeche that we never liked but always had fun with it. They used to put a million cloves of garlic in it and we would always count how many cloves we each had. They didn't have ANY garlic this time!

July 20th

We still hadn't gone food shopping so we decided to try a new spot for breakfast. We didn't want diner food. We found Kelly's Dockside Pub that we had been to for dinner about 28 years ago! We didn't know they had breakfast. We sat outside on the deck with the Cayuga inlet in front of us. Very nice and good breakfast!

We decided to take a ride up to Cayuga Lake State Park to check out our campsite for the second half of the week. What a HUGE place! We wrote down other sites that we would prefer over the one we originally picked out.

We headed to Seneca Lake to check out some wineries on that lake. I wasn't really impressed. They weren't as friendly, were more expensive, and the wines didn't really do much for me. I'm partial to Cayuga Lake wineries. They did have nice views though!

Some of the wineries on Seneca Lake had very nice views. We had lunch at Castel Grisch Winery. We both chose the Jaegerschnitzel. We sat out on the deck overlooking the vineyards and lake.

We had dinner at The Plantation on their deck. It's so nice in the summertime to eat outside. We each had a wrap. Weird crowd there!

We then decided to check out where the Floriculture Field day gardens were in case we decided to go tomorrow. PJ called Donna and she gave us all the info we needed. We found it but couldn't get in. We decided to skip tomorrow's visit and go on Wednesday when it wouldn't be crowded with people and it would be FREE!

July 19th CONTINUED...

Well we arrived in Ithaca around 3:00. It was a long ride because this time we stopped for breakfast and walked around a farmers market along the way. We went to the plant Science building to see if there was any info on the Floriculture Field Day that was for Tuesday. Donna told us that we could get tickets to view the field gardens in the afternoon and it would include lunch. That would leave out the morning boring lectures! As usual, there wasn't any info so we decided to take a walk through Mimm's Garden right outside of the building. I love the new gate and fence that they put in. They are iron and so detailed! There are 'roots' and even a 'shelf fungus' on one of them... all in iron. The flowers were really nice as usual. I was disappointed that the Alliums weren't painted this year as they were last year. Oh well. I went around taking some seeds from plants that I liked. One of them was from the Allium Giganteum. I went to pick off just a couple of seeds and the entire HEAD came off!!! I quickly stuffed it in my pocketbook so no one would see. It's about 9 or 10 " in diameter!!

We ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then headed out to Sunset Park to see a magnificent sunset over Cayuga Lake!