Thursday morning, we headed to nearby Buttermilk Falls State Park (literally 10 minutes away). I thought these would be different and buttermilk would be flowing instead of water…but alas, it’s just named for the creek that creates the falls. With the choice of a rim trail or a gorge trail, we opted for the gorge trail since the view of the falls was supposed to be superior. Well, nothing good in this world comes easy. It was an incredibly steep trail with stairs basically non-stop for .75 mile or more. My Apple Watch calculated 28 flights climbed, and says we had an elevation gain of over 300 feet. We contemplated turning around several times, but as we went up each set of stairs, the views were more and more incredible. I can’t count how many times I said “wow” during this hike! Turns out Buttermilk Falls consists of about 10 waterfalls, and each was more beautiful than the last one…so we had to keep going and see everything! Mark was such a good sport – he would have been happy to see the first couple waterfalls and turn around, but he kept going! In the end, we did the entire gorge trail and then connected over to the rim trail for the downhill portion of our journey. On that side, instead of stairs, it was a steadily descending trail. Definitely not much of a view, however. As difficult as the stairs up were, it was the correct direction to go. We encountered lots of people who went up on the rim trail and down on the gorge trail, but they weren’t getting the amazing views of each waterfall unless they kept turning around on the way down. And, regardless, there was the same elevation gain…just sloping trail vs. stairs to choose between. So very glad we went, and on a day when the humidity finally broke and the mid-70s temperatures were actually comfortable.

After lunch, we decided to stop at an auto parts store to look for a better funnel to be used to pour more water into RoVer’s fresh water tank. The one we had was small and slow. As Mark always says, the right tools make all the difference…so true! When we got back to the campground, we poured two 3-gallon jugs in no time at all. So much faster, which Mark appreciated since he has to lift the water jug pretty high up – the water tank access is about four feet off the ground.

We also stopped at Stewart Park at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake while we were out – huge, beautiful park overlooking the water. Just a few sailboats out (it is Thursday, after all!). Not a cloud in the sky, a nice breeze. Ahhhh, so refreshing and relaxing! Oh, and I bought a new shirt…

It was mostly a relaxing afternoon, but we did get a couple RV ‘projects’ done. There are two stabilizer jacks on RoVer that are down whenever we’re parked at a campsite. There’s always the fear that we will forget to retract them before driving off (which would not be a good thing!), so Mark decided to spray paint them in a very visible color (“key lime” is what the manufacturer calls it)…once an engineer, always an engineer! So now that’s done and there’s less worry about forgetting they’re down!

And, we had a couple items we wanted to hang inside the RV…the sign on top is one we purchased during our VA/DC trip back in April. The lower one is a gift from my very thoughtful friend Jenna, and is so appropriate! RoVer does feel like home, wherever she’s parked!

By late afternoon Thursday, our tank levels were getting dangerously high. We really did NOT want to have to move the RV when we’d be leaving the next morning and could easily dump the tanks on the way out of the campground, so we were determined to make it work…a new challenge for us! Started using the campground restrooms (pretty short walk to two different ones, both of which were very clean) – but not during the night…no way! We did everything we could not to use the sinks, as well. And we managed to make it work – the tanks hit ‘full’ just before we were ready to leave Friday morning. Yay!

We enjoyed s’mores over our Solo Stove (gotta watch those marshmallows – they will burn very quickly over such a hot fire!) for our final evening at Robert Treman State Park.

Friday morning, we packed up in no time, stopped to fill the water tank with an actual hose instead of in 3-gallon increments, and then finished up at the dump station. From the park, we headed west to the southern tip of Seneca Lake (the deepest of the Finger Lakes) to the town of Montour Falls, for one last waterfall viewing. It’s really unique because the falls are in the middle of town, between two houses, and they’re really quite impressive at 165 feet high. Their official name is “Shequaga Falls” which means “tumbling waters” – seems appropriate! This waterfall seemed like it’s been affected more by the dry spring we’ve had – water seemed ‘thinner’.

Watkins Glen State Park is a few miles away, and we likely would have stopped there but we visited in 2019 and didn’t feel like we needed any more hikes, waterfalls, or state parks on this trip! So, we headed north along Seneca Lake, past countless wineries and vineyards, and stopped in Geneva for lunch. There’s a wonderful Finger Lakes Visitor Center there and lots of walking paths along the lakeshore, so Mark napped in the RV while I enjoyed the beautiful weather & scenery on a 2-mile walk. This sign by the visitor center sums it up nicely, especially given the natural beauty and state parks we enjoyed this week…

A few days at home and then we’ll be back on the road next Wednesday to Green Lakes State Park near Syracuse…one of our favorites to visit, and our first time camping there. Until then…