On the Wine Trail

Finger Lakes, New York

We're checked i n at the Cayuga Lake State Park at the north end of Cayuga Lake. Yesterday we did some tastings at three nearby wineries. This lovely creature is named Melody. She has a white wine named after her.

I was born on Cayuga lake in Ithaca. My earliest memory is playing in the dirt in front of 333 Center Street and watching a snake stick it's head out of a hole in the Spring. I was 2 1/2 then..and frightened...snakes fear is instinctual.... Probably the lake is too cold for swimming right now. It gets up to 55 or 60 Fahrenheit. in July. Whenever I dive in, the familiar cold water hits my nose like a salmon returning to spawn. I'll wait and dive in again when it's warmer...

We got several phone messages telling us that a Magistrate in Annapolis would soon issue a warrant for my arrest because my taxes. I put the number into Google and the Internet says that  it's an IRS scam number.I call back a man answers who identifies himself as a Treasury Agent. I tell him I am Phred Firecloud, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and ask him to stay on the line long enough for my telephone trace to complete. He hangs up on me. I file a complaint with the real Treasury Department, but really don't expect much. No money in it for them.

We spent a night and day at New York's Southwick State Park on Lake Ontario. On a sight-seeing drive we stumbled upon Fort Ontario Museum in Oswego which has changed hands, been destroyed and rebuilt many times over the last 250 years. You have the French and Indian Wars, The Revolutionary War, the 1837 Patriot's War (an ill-fated invasion of Canada by Canadians hoping to throw off the British yoke of tyranny), soldiers dispatched from here to the Civil War, the Philippines, WWI and WWII...

The final real uses of the fort were to resettle 982 Jewish refugees from Europe in 1944 and then to house veterans returning from WWII until 1953. We only did a total of 982 refugees in the whole war...We were too busy housing 30,000 Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps in the desert,

I'm a sucker for barn pictures. Took this one on a long walk on a country road in the morning.

We bought four bottles of fine New York white wine after three tasting sessions and Mrs. Phred went to sleep early. Wine tasting is hard work.