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Friday 15 September 2006

The Finger Lakes of New York

Watkins Glen State Park, New York

Glaciers pushed though here 12,000 years ago and left heaped up high mountains and very long gouged-out lakes. Some of the lakes are 40 miles long and a mile wide. There are salt mines under the lakes where salts were deposited 400 million years ago. Cornell University scientists are still looking for neutron flashes deep underground in tanks of dark water.




The gorges in this area have been cut though soft shale in the eye-blink since the glaciers receded. Here are some pictures of on of the gorge/waterfalls called “Buttermilk

We have an appointment here to apply for Mrs. Phred’s old age benefits. We arrived at the small local Social Security office at 8:58 AM for our 9 AM appointment. It's been "hardened" against terrorists.

The Wackenhut security guard is armed. He unlocks the thick glass office door at precisely 9 AM and we enter to log in to our appointment on a screen with REALLY BIG fonts for old people.

A few seconds later he buzzes us into an interview room though a steel door. The counselor is behind a large sheet of bulletproof glass. There is a slot to push though Mrs. Phred's birth certificate...

We went to the 215 foot Taugannoock falls today with friends who have traveled here to meet us. Late in the day I get a shot of a Monarch butterfly on a purple flower…it’s my best photo ever.

The Cornell ornithologists reintroduced peregrine falcons into the gorge several years ago. They tagged the falcons with radio transmitters. All the transmitters were later found in owl pellets.


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