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!

Toilet Paper Poll

Can you believe that I’ve made it all the way through February without a bathroom post? Wait, what do you mean it’s only February 6th? It seems like the Steelers won the Super Bowl weeks ago. Anyway, inspired by Jason’s incredible TMI Friday (NSFW if your office reads every single word on every webpage you visit; there are no pictures and the language is generally PG-13, so you’re fine otherwise), I created a poll on the top right of the page with an extremely important question: Do you fold or crumple your toilet paper?

Feel free to add your answer and any thoughts in the comments section.


Here are your Friday links:

I love Ithaca, New York, though the politics of the city is fascinating and sometimes crazy. Ithaca had a socialist mayor when I first lived there and I remember an off-beat guy with his own public access show running for mayor and doing fairly well. This week’s council meeting featured a shoe-thrower which seems like to be the "in" thing to do to politicians.

Raccoons invaded the White House grounds. I hate raccoons.

Lawrence Timmons has a blog (h/t Three Rivers Sports) including this:

This is such as great feeling. I still can’t believe we won it. I’m so overwhelmed, it’s just crazy to win a Super Bowl when you’re 22.

We were in Tampa, but it was like a home game for us. Every time we did something on the field, I could hardly hear myself talk. Every time the Cardinals did something, you could hear just fine. Our fans are the real deal.

HHR interviewed Stefan Fatsis, the author of A Few Seconds of Panic, one of the best books I’ve read over the past few years.