Cody’s blog

Watkins Glen State Park
1009 N Franklin St
Watkins Glen, NY 14891

(607) 535-4511

September 8 – 13, 2024

Arrived at Watkins Glen State Park and settled into my site. I was right next to the entrance to the loop in a nice level site with tall trees surrounding it. But somehow I never felt really comfortable there. The sites were tight and weirdly angled, so there wasn’t as much privacy as I’d have liked. You can see in the picture that the trees, while many and tall, were sparsely branched at the lower levels, so you could easily see through them to neighboring sites. The car campers in the spot behind me were clearly visible. But I was lucky to get a spot at all — the campground is large, with 276 sites, but most are primitive and only 90 have electric hookups. My sister-in-law had reserved their site earlier, and the electric sites were all booked up by the time I tried to get a spot to join them. I had to get on a waiting list for Watkins Glen and for Robert H Treman State Park, the other park they were planning to visit. I was lucky that a spot opened up at Watkins Glen and couldn’t be picky about the location. I never did get a reservation at Robert H Treman, and ended up skipping that part of the trip and going home after Watkins Glen.

Near the entrance to the campground is the visitor’s center (which was closed at the time), with a playground, pool (also closed), bathhouses, and the entrances to several of the park’s hiking trails.

The campground may be nothing special, but the real attraction of the park is the many gorges and waterfalls and beautiful hiking trails throughout the park. On Monday, our first full day at the park, we drove down to town and stopped at the visitor’s center at the bottom of the gorge. We spent several hours wandering around the trails and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

The trails vary from flat and easy to very steep and strenuous. We tended to stay to the easier ones. There was still plenty to investigate if you stayed to the flatter trails.

After visiting the gorge, we drove around through the town of Watkins Glen and stopped for lunch at Jerlando’s Italian Ristorante & Pizza Shop. I had a yummy caprese sandwich with fries.

On Tuesday, we parked at the campground entrance and hiked some of the trails that led from there. My brother and I took the longer but more level fork of the trail, while my sister-in-law took the shorter but steeper route.

We met up at a bridge overlooking the gorge — the same view we’d seen the day before, but from higher up this time.

The next day, Wednesday, was a lazy day at the campground. I visited J&J at their trailer for a while in the afternoon, but spent most of the day futzing around on the computer, playing games, watching videos, and reading.

On Thursday, we visited some wineries, starting with Lakewood Vineyards. The setting was really beautiful.

The high point for me was the pink inflatable wavy arm guy out in the vineyard. Possibly acting as a scarecrow or something. Or just a fun addition to the scene.

Next stop was Rock Stream Vineyards, another pretty vineyard.

And then we visited Castel Grisch Winery, one of the highlights of the trip before we even reached the parking lot! The entrance to the winery wound through fields filled with dragons, dinosaurs and all sorts of figures. We were told that the owner put up the decorations when he got bored during the years when everything was closed for the pandemic. Now, they hold a Festival of Lights during December and January where they light up all the exhibits.

The kitsch goes on, with gold Buddha statues on the front porch, and a Delorean parked near the entrance.

Inside, there are more fun decorations, including this T-Rex guarding the fireplace and piano.

We ate dinner at Nickel’s Pit BBQ. I had loaded tots (without the bacon) and they were delicious!

Friday we parted ways. J&J went on to their next campsite, while I drove home. I was glad to go home, because my cat Davey had not been doing well during the trip. On several days, I came home from our sight-seeing to find him lethargic, breathing fast and making little groaning noises, and not eating. I thought maybe he was overheating hiding under my sleeping bag while I was gone, even though the weather wasn’t that hot. Thursday — our longest day out — was his worst, and I determined that if he was still sick in the morning, I’d call the vet and try to get an afternoon appointment for him and take him in as soon as we got home. But he was fine Friday morning and has been since, so I decided from then on not to leave the bed up during the day, and roll up the sleeping bag so he can’t get under it while I’m gone.

Other than Davey’s trouble, it was a good trip! It was the first time I hadn’t spent the night in the van before heading out, and I ended up forgetting some things that I would have brought if I’d been in the van to notice. Oh well. Finally got the Waggle set up and decided it was fairly useless, since the battery ran down so quickly and there was rarely good enough cell service to connect anyway. Also finally got the Winegard set up and enjoyed streaming some TV with my Roku but ran out of data pretty quickly.

Every trip I come home with a list of things to remember to bring next time, and things to leave at home. I’m still finding the van sort of cramped and inconvenient to camp in, but so much easier to drive and park than the truck and trailer that the inconvenience is worth it. I’m gradually finding ways to make it more comfortable. As long as I’m traveling with J&J and camping at sites with electric hookups, I can go exploring with them and leave Davey in the van with heat and A/C to keep him comfortable. But if I ever decide to go camping on my own, I’m not sure how it would work with a cat in the van. If I go exploring with the van, I will need to park at places where I won’t have electricity to keep the A/C on in case it gets hot. I would either have to 1) upgrade the solar & storage batteries so they could run A/C without shore power (the batteries I have now could probably run A/C for an hour or two, but no longer); 2) take Davey with me everywhere in a backpack or stroller when we’re not plugged in (took the cats into Walmart in their stroller on my trip moving across country, but not everywhere allows cats, and in any case Davey is so nervous about being in strange places, I’m sure he’d hate it); 3} find a way to bring along some sort of electric bike or scooter to explore with so the van can stay plugged in; or 4) just stay at the campground the whole time. Not sure how much camping on my own I’m going to be doing, though. Traveling with my bro and SIL is more fun, anyway.