Our adventure this week started off with a stop at the end of our road to give you a snapshot of the trillium in full bloom in the woods. The logging trail was put in last year (this used to the ALL trillium) but it is still one of the prettiest sights around.
For years we've heard about Rochester's Lilac Festival - after all, gathering to see their lilacs has been an annual event since 1898. Once in Rochester you really don't need directions... just follow your nose. They have over 500 varieties (all in bloom) on 22 acres - a pretty heady experience (probably NOT the event for you if your subject to allergies). The variety in the photo is called Avalanche. The Park Dept. was very kindly selling plants so of course our garden now has one too. And if you want to wear the scent of lilacs all year long, the festival sells lilac perfume made from buds and blossoms harvested by volunteers and sent to a perfume company for processing (I refrained... enough is enough).Highland Park where the lilacs are is worth a trip in itself. It was designed by Fred. Law Olmstead who also designed Central Park. Some of the trees look like they might have been original to the park when it was given to the city in 1888. (Fortunately for our yard the Park Dept. was only selling lilacs...)
Since it was a pretty day we decided to head home via the Seaway Trail that skirts the shore of Lake Ontario and goes through some of NY's apple orchards - in full bloom right now. (It takes a LOT of trees for NY to produce 25 million bushels of apples each year!) Our tourism map had a little dot for Chimney Bluffs State Park (we'd never heard of it but it sounded interesting). Turns out it encompasses a section of shoreline being eroded away by Lake Ontario. A fairly exciting trail with warning signs not to get too close to the edge. Parts of the trail have obviously slipped over the edge since last year (probably NOT the best hike to take after a rain). But it was beautiful with lots of photo opts. I particularly liked the bit of sod still clinging to the top of the bluff in the right of the photo.
While the trail is definitely "hike at your own risk", I guess the state did feel the need to reinforce the fact that the road is also dropping off (perhaps they were getting too many nominations for the Darwin Awards...).
