Taughannock Falls

This might be the longest break between posts in the history of this blog, and the reason is because I went on vacation. Yes, my family of five took our first real vacation possibly ever. All of our trips consist of visiting family and/or returning to Pittsburgh, so I don't really count those as vacations. The last vacation I can remember was going to a wedding in New York City, and that was when The Moose was 1. He's going into 6th grade this fall! While I hope to write several posts about the trip to Niagara, Falls, Toronto, and upstate New York, this post is about Taughannock Falls.

Taughannock Falls and the Taughannock Falls State Park are in central New York about 10-15 minutes away from Ithaca. I went to the state park several times in college, particularly to show friends and family that visited from out of town. The falls are 215-feet high, and I spent way too much time unsuccessfully searching online for the largest waterfalls in the continental United States. According to one source on WikiPedia, Taughannock Falls has the largest drop for any waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains. This includes Niagara Falls (188 feet), which I'll come back to monetarily.

As part of our vacation, I thought we would go to the park, walk the 3/4 trail to the bottom of the falls, and then visit Ithaca. That all happened, but before the hike, we went to the scenic overlook, which I had never seen before. How did I not know about this? It's an awesome view of the falls with barely any walk, and they had bathrooms! Amazing!

Overall, Taughannock Falls was a great as I remember even though I hadn't been there in probably 20 years. If you ever go with kids, make sure you visit BEFORE going to Niagara Falls about 3 hours away. Despite being taller, the kids weren't very impressed with Taughannock Falls after seeing the vast size and huge mist of Niagara Falls.

Oh, we saw some circling vultures too!