Easy Hike with a Spectacular Payoff at Chittenango Falls State Park

Chittenango Falls is a small state park, just shy of 200 acres. But despite its small size, this park is well worth a visit. As its name implies, the park’s centerpiece is a picturesque, 167-foot staircase waterfall, which sends the waters of Chittenango Creek into a gorge.  You can’t help but notice the amount of […]

Exploring the Art, History and Science of Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass

Still Life with Two Plums, 2000, Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick The Corning Museum of Glass should be on your bucket list, if it’s not already. Carrona (Carrion), 2011, Javier Perez, blown glass chandelier, assembled, broken; taxidermied crows, wire, monofilament; this provocative sculpture evokes opportunistic birds eating carrion in a pool of blood by the side […]

Walk through American History on Historic Huguenot Street

The Crispell Memorial French Church is a reconstruction of the 1717 stone church that wasused by the Huguenot families for both worship and education. The current structure was rebuilt in 1972. Historic Huguenot Street, in New Paltz NY, is one of the oldest, continuously occupied European settlements in America, dating back to the last three decades […]

Minnewaska State Park’s Must See Falls: Awosting Falls Hike

Awosting Falls are a spectacular water fall within the Minnewaska State Park, itself a very popular day-use park. The short and sweet Awosting Falls Hike is simply a must-do hike if you visit this park. The state park features a couple of “sky lakes,” as well as as about 50 miles of trails. With the […]

Discovering a Unique American Perspective at the Rockwell Museum

The buffalo bursting out of the museum is named Artemus (for “art is a must”), and is the museum’s mascot The Rockwell Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate museum of American art located in the Finger Lakes region in downtown Corning, NY. The Rockwell Museum explores the people, land and ideas that shape America through the […]

Exploring a Lake in the Sky: Lake Minnewaska

Although originally we’d come to Minnewaska State Park, located in the Shawangunk Mountains in Ulster County, NY, for its water falls — Awosting Falls, Stoney Kill Falls, and another waterfalls that we ended up not going to — we came back simply to hike around Lake Minnewaska itself.  Minnewaska State Park Preserve is nestled within […]

The Scariest Place I’ve Ever Been: Ghost Hunting in the Old Mid-Orange Boy Reformatory

The Warwick State Training School for Boys, near Chester NY, opened in 1914 as the New York City Farm, a rehabilitation center for alcohol and drug dependent men.  It then became the State Training School for Boys in 1933, focused on the rehabilitation of young men, and then transformed again into the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility […]