Summer Road Trip - New York: Wine Tasting

The green field in front of Madison Barracks

Wildflowers

Since I was a kid, I have known that New York had a wine region. On the rare occasion that I found myself eating in a restaurant with my parents, my Dad might order some wine, but he would ask where it was from, California or New York. After living in California for ten years, it seems silly to think that any American wine, other than a Californian wine (or Oregon or Washington) would ever make its way onto a wine list, and even more, be compared to a New York wine, but growing up in a Mid-Atlantic state, I guess this was not too unusual. He always avoided New York wines, something about the yeast they used that made him ill. Of course, since then, there has been an explosion of wineries across the country. Working in the wine industry for three years, I got to know many wines from all over the world and I mostly considered the West Coast to be the only serious wine growing region in the country. Sure, and maybe here and there, New York could be considered too, after all, I had tasted a couple of New York wines that were good. In general, the wines I have tasted from other states have been, um, well let's just say, they are doing the best they can (I have had AMAZING sparkling wine from New Mexico, even special ordering the Gruet non-vintage Brut rose for my wedding reception). But I like to approach new wine tasting experiences with an open mind, so when I heard that the wine tasting festival, "Taste of New York", was going to be held in Sackets Harbor that Saturday, I was intrigued.

Behind Madison Barracks: Lake Ontario

Sailboats on Lake Ontario

Our day started early, when a potential dog sitter for Merle came over to see if he was a suitable client. Our plan for tomorrow was to kayak out to one of the islands in the Saint Lawrence river to camp one night, so we needed someone to dog sit for Merle. When you walk out of Therese and "Susan's" front door there is a green field from military times and around the back of their building is Lake Ontario. Therese has a great routine of playing ball with Merle in the huge green grass field. He will play fetch forever. Sometimes she will take him to the lake and throw the ball in the lake for him to fetch. Merle loves this too. Sometimes he can not contain himself and will go for a swim when he is not allowed. Therese does not like this, she is a disciplinarian. Upon walking outside we enjoyed the views of the lake and watched some sailboats racing. This part of the lake is actually a bay of the lake and you can see farmland across the bay. It was a beautiful morning, not too hot, not too cold, not too humid and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. A nice breeze was making it a great day for sailing. Susan, seemed wistful, wishing we were sailing Hobie Cats today, rather than in the sparse wind we hard on Thursday.

Lake Ontario

Taste of New York Wine Festival

Less crowded tent

We decided to walk to the wine festival in town and did so along the lake, past Madison Barracks marina, a small marina will a small stony beach, available to the residents of the barracks. We walked along the pleasant streets with colonial and modern houses, yet all unique all inviting, all quaint in their own way. We walked downtown to the end, across from the Gazebo where the wine tasting festival was taking place under a large, white tent. There were already a lot of people there. There was a line, taking money and checking IDs.

Downtown

Once inside the tent, it was so crowded it was making me crazy. We had to wait five or more minutes at each winery's table to taste their wines. The first winery seemed to have a dozen different wines to taste. I looked around, ALL the wineries seemed to have a dozen or more wines to taste. There was no way I could taste them all. So I looked at the tasting list, when I could finally get close enough to the table to see it, to see what they were tasting. "What to taste, what to taste, what are these grapes?" I thought. The woman pouring wine looked at me impatiently, like I was supposed to know what I wanted already. Out of nervous pressure I said, "I'll taste something red."
"Dry or sweet?" she asked.
"What?" I was thinking, "they have sweet red wine?"

Kids outside the tent

"Dry." I said, a little startled sounding, and she poured me a taste of wine in a itsy bitsy plastic cup. I tasted it. It was sour, thin, fruity, but it had a strange taste, like too much alcohol or like it was way too young to be pouring and needed to age another couple of years, yet if they did that it would completely fall apart and then just taste like an old wine that passed its prime three decades before. Hmm... interesting. Maybe I am just a wine snob. Maybe it is not so bad. Maybe this is the best they can do with the less-than-optimal growing conditions and weather. Maybe this is inexperience. Maybe this is the unique New York terroir. Maybe this is the unfamiliar grape varietals. Maybe this is just a Taste of New York. At this moment, I decided to accept it for what it was and even though I could not forget all the experience I have had with hundreds and probably thousands of wines I have tasted, I could at least taste these wines on their own merit, for what they were, instead of what I might have thought they should have been. Now I am having fun.

View of Downtown Sackets, from the tent

Returning Sailboats

We went from table to table, winery to winery tasting wines. I learned to ask for dry wines and avoid any sweet wines. I learned to ask about the amount of residual sugar and taste only those with the lowest percentage. I learned to taste grape varietals I had never heard of before such as Baco Noir, Cayuga, Chelois, Delaware, Fronternac, Niagara, Marechal Foch, Seyval Blanc, Vidal Blanc and Traminette. And I discovered fruit wines. Yes, fruit wine. I remember hearing about Strawberry wine when I was a kid, but I had never had any. Here, they had blueberry, cranberry, peach, plum, cherry and pear wines. There was one winery that only made fruit wines. Montezuma Winery had a cranberry and blueberry wine and they were both good, in fact, they were both really good. As wines, they just were too different to compare to typical grape wine, but as finely made beverages they were really, really good, so good, in fact, I bought two bottles of their cranberry wine, and one bottle of their blueberry wine. Therese also bought one of each and a bottle of their Honey Mead.

Therese & "Susan"

After going around the entire first tent's wineries we decided it was time for lunch. We watched some sailboats heading in and a party start to get lively inside the Gazebo next to the marina. We wandered back to Sackets Harbor brewery, since they have good lunch and outdoor seating. We sat outside, where Therese and I sipped iced tea, trying to settle our overly-wined palates, while Susan had a beer. I had an amazing Cuban pulled pork sandwich for lunch.

Gazebo party at the marina

After lunch, we went back to the wine festival, but my original enthusiasm had waned and I wasn't sure how much more wine I could taste. But taste on I did, slowing down at each table and finally, giving up. The wine just started to taste worse and worse and some of it just tasted downright awful. Instead, I started tasting fudge of all imaginable flavors, melon, peanut butter, hazelnut, cotton candy. I did find a maple sugar producer who had amazing New York maple syrups and heavenly maple fudge. I bought some of the maple fudge; it was sticky, gooey, creamy, soft, and not too sweet. The air filled with Beatles music when a band started playing in the Gazebo. It has been a long time since I've heard "Day Tripper".

Old McDonald's Farm

Here I was going to tell the story about McDonald's, the farm, not the fast food place, and not Old McDonald-had-a-farm, but the ice cream place. But I have decided that it would just be me opening up some unnecessary, drawn out, negativity and I don't want to do this, for the same reasons I don't watch Nancy Grace, it is just a way to waste your life away. I will say this, something I learned again about myself, I think it is the experience like the one I am not telling you about, where I feel like the beaten dog, kick me while I'm down, I don't ask for much and you still deny me so little. I am not the type to ask people to make an exception for me. I obey the rules, follow directions, willingly suffer when I am to blame. But when I do everything right, I except others to do right by me, because this is what I would gladly do for them.

View of the Barracks from Sackets Harbor

The next matter at hand was dinner. The next day we were supposed to kayak out to an island for camping, kayaking back the next day, but the weather forecast was scattered thunderstorms, so we canned that idea. I was sorely disappointed (again on this trip) but to make the best of the situation we decided to trade camping in a storm for gallivanting around a foreign, French-speaking city. We would go to Montreal. I was very excited and less disappointed. But to get our camping fix, we decided to have our campfire and roast our hot dogs and S'mores on the Madison Barracks marina beach. That is where we would have dinner.

Sackets Harbor at Night

Sunset

We had appetizers of River Rat cheese and maple fudge while waiting for the sun to set. Only when night was fully upon us did we make our way to the stony beach. It was dark with only a sliver of moon. There was a small, rock-enclosed fire ring and we began collecting dry twigs and sticks for kindling. Soon, our fire was roaring. In the distance, across a bit of the lake, we could see the twinkling lights of Sackets Harbor and we could hear the last few songs of the Gazebo Beatles band. We roasted our hot dogs and our marshmellows while the night became quiet, except for the crickets and the small lake waves crashing gently along the stony beach.

Summer Road Trip - New York: The Land of a Thousand Islands

Tin Pan Galley

Sackets Harbor Marina

On this somewhat chilly morning, in Sackets Harbor, we go to breakfast in town, a place called Tin Pan Galley. Tin Pan is in the center of downtown Sackets, with a large, shaded, garden patio and a hard-wood, almost colonial feeling interior. They serve excellent food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For breakfast, they are supposedly famous for the stuffed French toast and their creative eggs benedict dishes. I get the lemon ricotta pancakes, amazing.

War of 1812 Battlefield

After breakfast we venture down to the end of Sackets Harbor to admire the marina and the War of 1812 Battlefield. The sky is brilliant blue with lots of fluffy white clouds. It is a little humid, but comfortable, it smells like summer.

North Country New York Farmland

We drive north toward the Saint Lawrence River and the Canadian border, passing farms and fields and wildflowers everywhere. It is so beautiful out. I miss this kind of countryside. The rural areas of the West feel so different, they have an expansiveness, a dryness that is different. Here, it is more intimate, you know more because you know of less.

Wellesley Island State Park

We reach the Thousand Islands Bridge. I am in the Land of a Thousand Islands. You may hear "Thousand Island" and think of salad dressing and, rightly so, since this is where it came from, the chopped vegetables in the dressing looking like thousands of little islands in a large river. The Saint Lawrence River runs between Canada and the United States, flowing from Lake Ontario out to the Atlantic Ocean. The part of the river between Ontario and New York is called the Thousand Islands. This extremely wide river, is speckled with islands of various sizes. Some islands are tens of miles long and some are only big enough for a couple of large rocks and a tree. In the late 1800's and early 1900's many wealthy people from the Mid-Atlantic, especially, New York City, bought islands or property on the islands and built large houses, "castles" and often more humble, moderate, summer homes. So not only is the river dotted with green, tree and shrub covered islands, but it is dotted with last turn-of-the-century houses. It is a remarkable area, full of island romanticism, a youthful summer play atmosphere, and a mix of working locals and relaxed vacationers.
Our destination today is Wellesley Island State Park, which is one of the largest islands in the Saint Lawrence River and it is still part of New York. We drive past lots of campsites to the nature center parking and begin our hike.

East Coast Woods

The trail leads us into the woods and I am at first, a little confused because I thought the trail description promised us breathtaking views of the Thousand Islands area. My expectations were not aligned with reality. Then I realized, I was not going to get the Western Mountain vistas that I have grown accustomed to. This is the east coast, where expectations are different. People do not go hiking expecting their breathe to be sucked out of their chest because they are so dazzled and speechless over the endless beauty. Ah, no, it is different here. I ponder this for a while, soothing my disappointment.

Islands

Merle

The trail leads us out of the woods and back along the water. There, we do enjoy views of several islands out in the wide, wide river. It doesn't even look like a river, more like a lake since the water does not seem to be flowing. Maybe the thousand islands slow down its flow, I like this idea, your flow is slowed by a sprinkling of islands, all different, all unique in shape and size. There is one island in particular that is very small, with a house, a tree, some shrubs, a raft, some kayaks, maybe some people lounging about. Not really a yard to speak of. At a couple of places we let Merle throw sticks out into the water, which Merle, my sister's dog, is happy to swim out to and retrieve. At one spot my lens cap rolls down the rock and into the water and Merle enthusiastically retrieves it. Thanks Merle, for preventing the loss of another lens cap.

Golden Grass Pasture

Overlook of many islands

The trail leads up and out into a smooth, rock laden pasture of long, golden grass fringed by trees. There is a viewpoint of the islands spreading out amongst the riverlands. We stop for several moments to enjoy the views then continue on, descending back down into the woods.

Therese & "Susan"

It is this second time in the woods that I begin to relax. Relax because I can not help it. The hills roll gently, because they can not help it. The air is fresh with life and dirt and rock. The trees stand quietly, allowing their smaller branches and leaves to rustle in the breeze. Movement and stillness. The trees stand apart from each other, not crowded, allowing the sunlight to move through them, quilting the forest floor with light and dark. How can we know darkness without light and light without darkness? Both can exist here. Here there is space. The trees and ferns and rocks and trail and stillness and movement and light and dark all have their place here, there is space enough for all of it. Maybe this is peace. The ages that have washed over this place, and it has listened and learned, has made it wise. It does not try to amaze you or bore you, it has settled into its own, knowing and allowing itself to be known. No one sensation outshines the others, they are all equal and whole and you can remember all of them at one time and it allows you to experience it more fully. It is in the fullness that you can go deeper, you can know this place and when this understanding opens up, you can know yourself, absorbing it all and allowing yourself to be absorbed into it. You are no longer just seeing or hearing or feeling or smelling or tasting it, you are not even in it, you are it. And it is you. And all the things that might trouble you, can melt away, because when you let it all in and lay down your defenses, there is nothing else you can be, you are the amazing expansiveness that is what is. This is joy.

The pond

Wildflowers

We exit the woods, Therese, Merle, Susan (brother-in-law) and I, and we come upon a pond, a pond on an island in a river. The pond is surrounded by the forest and the perimeter has a line of wildflowers. Merle gets himself in trouble with his Mommy because he tries to go swim in the pond water. Eventually we are led back into the woods and finally, back to the nature center parking lot and our car.
Back in the car, we drive around the park as Therese scouts out campgrounds for possible sites for future family camping trips. It looks like an excellent place for a large, extended family to gather. Camping, kayaking, boating, fishing, hiking, group meals, campfires and even that funny bag-flying-on-campfire-smoke thing that my cousins like to do.

View from Thousand Islands Bridge

We head back towards mainland New York, again over the Thousand Islands Bridge, but this time, we stop and Therese and I walk to the top of the bridge to get a look of the Saint Lawrence River and the islands found in this part of the river. The view from this bridge is not as breathtaking as the part of the bridge that goes over into Canada, but we don't want to deal with turning around at customs because we don't all have our passports. But it is still beautiful and sometimes hard to tell islands from mainland because they are so big.

Clayton

At this point in the day we are famished but it is too late for lunch and too early for dinner so we decide to stop in the Thousand Islands town of Clayton, where the Thousand Islands dressing supposedly as born, to get a snack. Clayton is larger, more bustling, more excitable and less charming than Sackets Harbor, but it is still very nice. We go into the 1000 Islands Cheese Shop to buy "River Rat" Cheese, as it is called. We come away with several cheeses, aged cheddars, soft goat cheese, string cheese and the North Country New York specialty, fresh cheese curd. The fresh cheese curd we dig into immediately and it is sweet and salty and squishy and delicious. We walk next door to Lyric Bistro and get small servings of amazing gelato, my flavor is peanut butter. I walk down to the end of the street, where the downtown meets the Saint Lawrence River. There are some nice views of islands but it seems like the muggy clouds are rolling in, making the air seem a bit murky.

From Outside the Brewery

Evening

We head home a different way, through small towns and Amish farms. Then, we head to dinner at Sackets Harbor Brewery, which has a nice pub area and a dining room overlooking the marina and Lake Ontario. The sun is starting to get low in the sky, so after we order, I go out to take a few photographs. I walk along a rose vine covered wrought iron fence to the marina where people are talking and boats are coming in for the evening. Everything moves slowly and fluid, the boats gliding across the water, the ducks swimming in the lake, even the setting sun. When I return to the brewery our duck nachos have arrived and we enjoy our dinner.
When I lay on Therese's futon that night, trying to fall asleep, I feel homesick. Except not homesick for a place or a person. I miss Paul, but we talk every day and I know I will see him at the end of my trip, which is not so long from now. I know it is impossible to feel homesick when I am with a member of my immediate family, so it must not be homesickness for family. Maybe it is something else. A yearning for... something. I don't know, maybe it is for a part of myself I lost long ago and have forgotten. Maybe this trip has somehow reminded me of her and I am feeling the pain of loss for that space within myself that is missing. But it feels like homesickness. Maybe it is homesickness for a time in my life when I felt whole and the only way I have learned to cope in this world is to fragment myself, shedding and hiding parts of me. Maybe being with my sister takes me back and reminds me of that time when I knew her, that part of me, that younger me, that knew life differently, more fully. I think, of course, that this is it. She is looking for me and I would look for her, but I can't remember her name.

Sackets Harbor to Wellesley Island State Park, New York:

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Summer Road Trip - New York: Welcome Home from Iraq & Sailing

Upstate New York Horses

My flight from Salt Lake City was a red-eye, with an aisle seat and nowhere to lean my head. I stuff my lower and upper back with a blanket and jacket and had my neck pillow but I could not get comfortable. My upper back started to tighten with the all-too-familiar upper back tension and knots and it prevented me from sleeping much. I sat next to a mother and older daughter pair who tenderly snuggled up together for sleep. It did strike me as slightly irritating that the mother talked to her grown, young-adult daughter like she was twelve, but what do I know? I did manage to sleep a couple of hours, maybe. When I landed in JFK airport, I hunted down an electrical outlet and a seat near my gate for my three hour layover. I watched at least three flights leave from my gate, to exotic places like Jamaica and I was a little envious. When it finally came time to board, they assigned us seats as we went through the gate and walked outside, where we boarded a bus that shuttled us out to our small plane. It was a hot, humid, muggy morning at JFK.
The flying time was only 40 minutes to Syracuse and we landed before 11am. I cleaned up in the bathroom, collected my bags and waited outside for my brother-in-law.  It was hot and humid, I had forgotten to change into my shorts. Oh well.

Rolling New York hills

Here I will take a moment to go off on a tangent about my "New York" pet peeve. When you say you are going to "New York" most people assume you are going to New York City, which I find incredibly annoying and irritating. There is a whole state, which includes other cities which are NOT New York City. How arrogant does a city have to be to assume that it is the only "New York"? I am going to New York the STATE, not the arrogant, self-centered city. In fairness, it is not just the residents or former residents of New York City that make this poor assumption, in fact I don't even know if the city residents came up with this annoying misnomer. If I am going to New York City, I will say "New York City" and if I am going to New York then you should assume I am going to somewhere in the state of New York. The same annoyance goes for Washington and Washington, D.C., although this confusion seems to happen much less. Ok, I am done with my rant.

Downtown Sackets Harbor

New York farm

My brother-in-law, we will call him Susan for purposes of this story, picked me up and we headed north one hour. We drove along Interstate 81 and got off somewhere that took us through North Country New York, along back roads past farms, fields of hay and corn, along cow pastures and, best of all, up and down the rolling green hills that I love so much about the Mid-Atlantic states. Up and down the hills with ease and grace, gently turning, it is not boring, it is not so thrilling, it is comforting, like closing your eyes and rocking in a rocking chair. We take these roads to the small town of Sackets Harbor.

Sackets Harbor

Sackets Harbor is a gem. It is a slice of the original, perfected recipe for Americana pie. I believe it was founded in 1801 and has a small downtown lined with colonial brick buildings, hanging flower pots, historic street lamps, and American flags. It is a harbor town, as the name suggests, along a bay of Lake Ontario, harboring mostly sailboats at the marina at the end of town. There is a large, white gazebo overlooking the marina, like something out of an American, small-town storybook. Next to the gazebo is a historic battlefield from the War of 1812. There are several restaurants, shops, galleries, Bed & Breakfast's, and a micro-brewery. The place fills up in the summer with tourists. Outside of downtown is a long road that goes out to Madison Barracks which sit along the banks of Lake Ontario.

Sprawling field before Madison Barracks

The Watchtower

Madison Barracks is a grouping of old, historic, brick barracks for the soldiers, along with some other impressive looking war buildings, some of which are empty and being fixed up, some are cracking and crumbling and some are apartments. They all still look historic and open up to a huge, sprawling field where soldiers once marched and some, it was recently discovered, are buried in a mass grave. Across the field are more historic war buildings and an old, stone watchtower. Being there is like stepping back in time to another place in history, at least, if you took all the cars out of the scene, it would feel this way.

A view of Sackets Harbor

Chrissy Beanz

Susan and I head straight into downtown to Chrissy Beanz, a bakery and coffee shop, where we get weak coffee and a delicious peanut butter cookie. We sit outside and enjoy the beautiful, New York summer day. Then we head to their Madison Barracks apartment and I say Hi to my fuzzy nephew, Merle. I arrange my stuff and go to take a shower. It is while I am in the shower that my sister Therese gets home from work.

Fiesty Therese

Merle

Therese. Therese is the youngest of my three sisters and she is a twin to my only brother. She is 25 and has been married to my brother-in-law, we are still calling him Susan, for almost two years. She is fiesty with peachy, orange, red hair. Therese is good, and I don't mean that in the goody goody sort of way. She is a good person, she is amazingly thoughtful. Her thoughtfulness is worth more than buckets of gold and if you happen to be the lucky recipient of her thoughtfulness, it will touch your heart like few others can. She is reliable and dependable. Therese has an innocence, a naiveness, that reminds you that when you pull away all the layers of thick skinned bullshit we all develop to protect ourselves from being hurt, there is an honesty still left at the core. Thank you for the reminder, we can still see it in children too. Therese is a Captain in the Army and, less than two weeks before, has returned from her nine month deployment in Iraq. This is why I am here. Oldest sister goes to see youngest sister after returning from a far away war, where I can do nothing to help her or protect her. It has been a long nine months and I am glad to have her back on American soil. I no longer obsess about the news, to wait to hear about a bombing in Iraq and if any Americans were killed or hurt. I would feel guilty about being relieved that it was only Iraqis that were killed. Yes, I admit this. No, I don't want anyone to be killed, but yes, it is a relief to know that your little sister is still with us, on this earth. I still check the news, more out of habit now, and I feel guilty to hear about soldier's deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan and to know, that an American family somewhere, will never feel the relief of knowing their loved one has returned safely.

Considering the purpose of my trip, it seems a little anti-climactic that my sister should return from work at Fort Drum, while I am in the shower. No, running towards her for a big hug, no tears, no Hallmark moment. Instead, I emerge from the bathroom, hot and still damp from my shower with a pile of clothes and towel in my hands, and there she is and it is a more casual hello then the dramatic one I had envisioned for nine months. But still, it is good to see her, of course, and I have known that she was back safe and she has time to adjust and so, it was more like a normal I-haven't-seen-you-in-awhile-and-I-just-flew-across-the-country-to-visit sort of hello. We hang out a bit and then get in the car to head back towards Syracuse, to Oneida Lake.

Oneida Lake

Waimea Bay, the raft is out there...

Oneida Lake is where my brother-in-law, Susan, has been learning to sail. He sails here, instead of Sackets Harbor, because here they sail the small boats, catamarans, called Hobie Cats. He has been gathering on Thursday evenings with this Hobie Cat club to go out as crew on one of the boats for their races on the lake. Last week was Therese's first week also going out and this week they are going to attempt to get me out on a boat as well. I guess when you sail a Hobie Cat, you can go by yourself, but often, you have one captain and one crew. Last week, Therese told them she was going to bring her sister to go sailing, to overcome her fear, after being hit by a Hobie Cat. Yes, I was hit by a Hobie Cat, a small sailboat, but I do not have a fear of them or a fear of sailing. Last summer in Hawaii, visiting my sister Christine, we took their giant seven-person raft out on Waimea Bay on Oahu. This is a huge, wide open bay. In the winter they hold a huge surf competition, if the waves get big enough, and in the summer it is calm and perfect for swimming and peacefully floating on a raft in the middle of the open, protected water. While floating on the raft, several hundred feet from shore, with several hundred feet of open water on either side of us, a Hobie Cat took off from the beach, nearly hitting and killing several dozen swimmers. Then, the boat turns to the open water sails right towards us, coming right towards where I was trying to scramble out of the water and safely in the boat, and hits the raft. I was knocked into the water, tumbling about fifteen feet under and came up under the Hobie Cat, between the two hulls. The man sailing the boat was an idiotic, far-too-laid back, emergency room doctor on the North Shore, who had no business sailing. I don't know how you manage to hit one of the only objects in a wide open bay, really, I think you have to be an incredible moron. I hope he is a much better doctor than sailor.

A Hobie Cat

They team me up with Marcie, for Hobie Cat sailing that night. Marcie has a boyish cut of blondish hair. She looks very athletic and has raced and crewed for mono-hull boats all over the country and world, including week long races. Her experience with a double hull (by the way, I have no idea if I am using the correct sailing terms) and as the captain, is not as deep. I get a quick lesson, on the beach, about crewing on a Hobie Cat. As the crew member I have to operate the little sail, the jib sail, that I guess helps you change direction, I don't really know. My head is nervously swimming with the meaning of port, starboard, bow, stern, tack, trim, cleave, jibe, when I have to do what, pull this in, loosen that, pull the jib sail to the other side, shift my weight, etc. Marcie is a good teacher and the wind is low, so I ease into it. We sail out into the middle of the lake and begin these races with the other boats. I am on my knees, taking orders from Marcie, as she shouts out, "We are going to tack on three" then she counts down and on "one" I uncleave the jib sail on one side, duck under it (so I don't get knocked unconscious), pull the sail around the mast to the other side and pull the line in to trim it. Sometimes I move the sail angle out, sometimes, when we turn I have to move to the back corner of the boat to help shift the weight for a quick turn. I am starting to get the hang of it, but really, I am not paying any attention to what Marcie is doing as captain. I am so focused on doing my part quickly, correctly, smoothly, following directions that I don't have time to figure out what she is doing. I am nervous that I am messing up her races, but I start to get the feeling that I am actually doing just fine. I am quiet, concentrating, not talkative. My knees get raw, I am banging myself around, but it is fun. I am getting better, the wind picks up, we get some amazing race starts and some good turns. Marcie tries to teach me more about sailing, I don't know if my brain can absorb any more. She is talking about Port Tack, Starboard Tack, the difference between a jibe and a tack, how to tell when and where the wind is changing direction, what boats have to yield to other boats, etc. It is warm and humid and the water is not cold at all. The wind picks up more and we lean off the side of the boat, anchoring our feet, to keep the boat upright in the strong wind. This is even more fun. I guess when you get really serious you use a trapeze to hold you on the boat which allows you to lean way over the side to shift your weight against the wind.
The sun is dipping below the horizon and we head back to shore. We had sailed for several hours. Back on shore, everyone takes the sails off, and some of them load their boats on trailers, since they are taking them to Rochester that weekend for a regatta. The air is swarming with mosquitoes, but is a warm, humid, New York night and I love it. It is such a change from the California nights, where the temperature always drops and you have to pull on a light jacket or sweatshirt.
After saying goodbye, we head off and stop at a pizza place. Yum, a New York pizza (okay a New York state pizza, even I have to take my hat off to New York City pizza), it has been a long time. What a long day, how did it begin? Trying to sleep a couple of hours on a place from Salt Lake City? It seems like Salt Lake City was so, so long ago, after flying into a new time zone, climate, landscape, sipping coffee in a 200 year-old town, reuniting with family, sailing on a lake in warm weather and eating real, East Coast pizza.

Syracuse Airport to Sackets Harbor, New York:

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