This weekend, Bob and I took an overnight trip to the Finger Lakes. If you’re not familiar with the Finger Lakes, you are missing out. The Finger Lakes are a series of lakes in central NY created by receding glaciers. They’re deep and narrow, and they look kinda like fingers, hence the name.

We started by driving to Hammondsport, at the southern tip of Keuka Lake, then worked our way eventually to Geneva, at the northern tip of Seneca Lake. The drive was absurdly pretty. It was very interesting to see where there was leaf change, and where there wasn’t. Some sides of the lake get cooler weather than the other side (despite the narrowness, or maybe because of it, I’m not a meteorologist), and so white wine grapes may be planted at one side and red wine grapes may be planted on the other shore. Similarly, sometimes the leaves will begin changing in some places and not others.

We had dinner at a favorite winery of ours, Billsboro, and enjoyed their legendary pizza on the patio. We stayed in a historic townhouse in downtown Geneva, and were then able to walk to Opus for breakfast burritos and cold brew. On our way home, we drove down the eastern edge of Seneca, hitting our all-time-favorite winery, Silver Springs, and Watkins Glen for lunch. We grabbed lunch at a little deli called Holy Cow (because the cow is dead — I had tuna) and ate at the lakeside park. Then drove through the bucolic scenery back home to rescue my parents from our children.