Friday, May 30 – Later than usual wakeup today, the sun was already up and shining when I headed outside. Wasn’t feeling the run today, so took a nice long walk, first around the marina, then down the main street, enjoying the sunshine and the relatively warm temperatures.

The youthful ones finally started stirring around 9:30 and Dan found an interesting breakfast place just a short walk from the hotel. Decorated like a tea shop, it offered breakfast options from around the world. We stayed fairly pedestrian with our choices, but Dan and Erin did avail themselves of the tea presented in a lovely china tea service.

Properly fueled sans grease, it was time to visit some more wineries, this time on Keuka Lake. Erin had procured tasting passports for the six wineries that are part of the Keuka Lake Wine Trail. Today we had Dan as our designated driver — car was not as clean and comfortable, but he didn’t require a tip! With him at the helm, we headed for the west side of the lake.

First stop was at the Vineyard View Winery close to the top of the lake in Pen Yan. It’s a working farm, very laid back atmosphere and we seemed to be the first guests of the day. We got chatting with the server and it turns out she was a UVM grad (of course she was). Most of the wines were just OK but they had an amazing dessert wine, very port like, and some of that is coming home with us. However, the dog that Dan and Dom befriended remained behind at the winery.

Winery number two was the Hunt Country Winery near Branchport. It is a certified sustainable vintner, using lots of renewables to power it’s operation. They had a great deck for tasting and they brought our selections out to us all at once like a beer or cider flight. I definitely liked that as it seemed a more relaxing way to taste the wines at our leisure. We had an appointment for our next stop, so we lingered here on the nice porch and constructed a charcuterie board for a light lunch to go with our wines. Again, the wines were no great shakes, but their dessert offering, a sherry, was quite good and I got a bottle to take home. There were no canine friends made at this stop, much to the boys’ dismay.

Our third, and, as it turned out final, stop, was at the Heron Hill Winery, high on a hill above Hammonsport. They advertised themselves as having one of the most spectacular tasting rooms in the country. It was quite nice, don’t know if it quite lived up to that billing, but I could not complain about the views and the server was quite friendly. The wines were fine, but I think we might have all reached a wine saturation point (who would have thought that was possible!?). Hence, the decision to make this the last stop. And, of course, yet another dog friend was made along the way.

After our return to Watkins Glen, we split up for our evening activities. Erin had booked herself and Dan on a two hour schooner ride, something Dom and I (wisely) passed on as our interest level was exactly zero. So, while they got wet in the drizzle on the water, the two of us stayed warm and dry and ate excellent barbecue at a highly rated restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel. It worked out quite well as far as I was concerned-I looked pretty darn cool having dinner out with a good looking young man 😄 Not to mention the fact there was virtually nothing the family vegetarian could have eaten on the menu. Alas, I forgot to take pictures but the food was quite good and very reasonably priced. And, despite the drizzle, Erin and Dan still greatly enjoyed their boat trip, so it was a win-win all the way around!

Tomorrow is our last full day here –it certainly has gone by quickly. With rain in the forecast, our intrepid trip planner has us scheduled for indoor activities so we should not miss a beat!

15,644 steps

7.5 miles