My Journal

Today, after church service (over the last few weeks, I've collected from libraries everywhere in South Amboy to Detroit, free solar eclipse glasses, and placed 9 of them at church entrance for people to take), began Nadia's and my trip to Ithaca. We were well prepared (sort of) the day before. Cayuga Blu Hotel was booked a week ago for tonight, via Agoda. Walk Everywhere Ruby Hotel booked a few days ago for Monday night, via Airbnb.

This will be our first experience of totality. A rare chance that is closest to where I am. I think I've seen a couple times of partial eclipse. One in Penang when I was in high school, through magnifying glass casting Sun light on the floor, another in the States, but I don't remember how I viewed it. The partial eclipses in my experience had been probably 50% or less eclipses. But this time, it hits virtually everywhere in the entire country on April 8, with a totality path from below Texas to Niagara Falls and onto Canadian territory.

Image Source

Image Source

So after church's fellowship meal, around 2pm, we drove 3 hours 40 mins directly from church to Cayuga Blu Hotel in Ithaca. I've packed ETX 80 telescope/tripod, Nikon D5100 Camera/tripod, Samsung 360 Camera, DJI OSMO Pocket camera, GoPro 10, an extra tripod, DJI Mavic Pro drone, solar filter for the camera (unfortunately I've only brought one and forgotten the other one for the telescope, but this one is compatible in size for both telescope and camera, so the problem is I have to switch between camera and telescope or just stick with one), Nadia's e-bike and my e-scooter. With only one solar filter, that is fine. I am still well prepared for this first experience. Nadia's along for the ride, not sure how interested she is. I'll try to make videos with those tripods that I have: especially 360 cam on one, and Nikon on another. The e-bikes are for the beautiful parks and waterfalls trails in Ithaca, Cornell University (Ithaca's pride) and Buttermilk Falls, if not also Rochester, which is where we will head for totality, 2 hour drive from Cayuga Hotel (Cayuga Lake is one of the well known Finger Lakes).

We've previously planned to go to Cleveland for this instead. But 7 hours drive was just not ideal for Nadia on the return trip for the possible work day next day. So Dang Good Foods would have to wait. A Singaporean restaurant opened by a college friend, Daniel Ang (we're not close), from Ouachita Baptist University. Thought I would surprise him, might not even tell him who I am, maybe, I don't know. So we switched from Cleveland (never been) to Rochester (passed by for previous Niagara Falls trips).

I had originally booked the second night elsewhere (Seneca Lake) before, at Gorgeous View Motel in Watkins Glen. But the state park's Rainbow Falls seemed to have their best trail (Gorge Trail) closed until May. Other than Gorgeous View Motel's famed lake view from their rooms, I couldn't find anything else that is Nadia friendly. No Asian restaurants either. So back to Ithaca it is, tons of Chinese, Korean, Indian restaurants.

Upon arriving Ithaca, pumped gas at BJ using Joe's card, checked into hotel. Cayuga Blu is so much more than I expected. For some reason, ratings (3.1) and reviews on Google made me think it is like one of those cheap motels for prostitutes. This is definitely higher class. The breakfast lounge for tomorrow (included) is a match to any good diner's settings.

Before sunset at around 6pm, I took Nadia touring two falls: Ithaca Falls and Horseshoe Falls. Think of mini-versions of the Niagara Falls. These are the kind of water falls in the Northern New York area, and there are tons of them. With Ithaca Falls, you can still feel the full force of the magnificent, 150ft rush down, not recommended for swimming, but you can walk close enough (10 feet) to the falls from the bottom. Easy trail of 5 minutes. The Horseshoe Falls has a hanging bridge over the gushing river full of falls here and there. College students frequent this narrow bridge of marvel design and engineering. With Nadia, I would not have time for my geological interest around the falls. We then took a quick glance at Cornell's famed I.M. Pei (who designed the Louvre in Paris) modern style designed Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at sundown, which I plan to visit during opening hours on Tuesday. At night, the Museum's top outer ceiling was a marvel of light show from outside. Nadia cooked (with hot water from the hotel staffs and microwave oven in our room) in the hotel, Tonkotsu Ramen that she brought for the both of us. So we skipped trying dinner at the locals.

4/8/2024 Monday. Woke up for the 7am complimentary hotel breakfast. Pretty good with bacons, scrambled eggs, sausage, etc. Come to think of it, there's a loop hole in this hotel, that is, they do not seem to have security (guest-only access) for their facilities. One could just walk in from the side doors and into their diner for free breakfast, provided he doesn't keep doing this until it raised suspicion. Same thing with the swimming pool and gym. But it was a great stay nonetheless. We checked out at around 8:30am.

Stopped by Long Point State Park for the Cayuga Lake view, Great Gully (privately owned) for the falls. Then Nadia took over the wheel and we headed to Rochester.

While on the road, I learned that the clouds was going to be a problem for the eclipse. And so we had to forgo the Rochester plan and head West (slightly South) for any hope of a clearer but not promising blue sky. Had it been Cleveland, we would have great view. After Nadia spotted the Finger Lakes Premium Outlets which she was interested to go to but we did not have the time, we went through Rochester without stopping and headed to Holley Canal Falls for great view instead of Rochester's Ontario Beach Park. While there was still time (before 3:17pm Totality), we pushed ourselves further West as much as we could, Batavia, Attica, Buffalo, even going further than Niagara Falls, heading towards Erie/Cleveland. Ended up in Eternal Flame Falls in Orchard Park, NY. 3 hours away from Ithaca, instead of Rochester which was only 2 hours. In fact, Orchard Park is only 3 hours away from Cleveland, but some other time.

3pm we arrived at the parking lot. There were enough parking lots. There were people gathering in the big field behind the lot for the same reason. Not too crowded, perhaps due to the cloud cover. Probably the size of 7-8 families. I saw someone setting up telescope. Laughed at him in my heart but it turned out I was the fool that laughed when I realized that we do get pockets of solar view from time to time, more often than none. I quickly took out the Nikon to set upon the strongest tripod we have, which I initially used for the 360 cam, thinking that we wouldn't see the Sun anyway, might as well just capture 360 degree of our surrounding when it gets dark during totality. In the rush, I forgot that I should also have setup my ETX 80 telescope. So the best video recording/shots I have of the eclipse was the Nikon D5100 with 300m lens. Though my GoPro and 360 were also active simultaneously. Everyone cheered at the beginning of totality at 3:17pm. The ETX-80 would have been great to get not any form of recording but a close view of the Sun's corona. I realized that one good thing with this half cloud covered sky is that the Sun was dimmed by the cloud enough to view with the naked eyes (or maybe even with binoculars/telescopes) even before/after totality, at least for the amateurs. Though it can still be dangerous. I did have to put on and off the solar filter for the Nikon.

After the eclipse, Nadia and I attempted the trail but gave up due to the fact that Nadia was wearing her sandal because she didn't bring her sports shoes.

And then Al had all helpdesk meet up on Teams at 5pm, the bad news: Christine's leaving us. To Germany, following her husband Chris who got a better job there. And it looks like she's not going to be employed because she's not allowed to work there. Though it didn't seem to bother her because retirement plan was a couple years coming anyway.

We then arrived around 6:30pm at Beef & Brew for dinner. Reservation would definitely be recommended, even though within 5 mins, we got our seat at a 6 people table just to ourselves by the entrance. More and more people came without reservations until the wait time was around 30 minutes. I ordered NY Strip Steak (medium, because from reviews, everyone's saying they cook rarer than ordered, and I actually liked mine medium rare) which turned out perfectly cooked and marinated, Beer & Cheddar soup (we could truly taste beer) interesting and remarkable taste, and for Nadia she had lamb chops.
Total: $63 without tips, we gave $8 tips. Discounted 4% for cash payment (they even accept personal checks for the same deal). Then we switched to me driving back to Ithaca, Airbnb hotel at 117 E Spencer Street.

8:30pm we arrived at our Airbnb. It was already dark and parking was tough. We parked around the next block in front of a laundromat. The two bedroom apartment was big enough for me, though Nadia did not fancy it too much. She complained that the front looked haunted (plants appeared to be dying), she also did not like the bed rooms, begging me to sleep with her instead of sleeping in the second bedroom, what a pity to not able to use the extra bedroom, but poor Nana. The good of this, walking distance to central Ithaca as well as big space. You wouldn't get regular hotel rooms this size.

4/9/2024 We had breakfast at the famous Collegetown Bagels. Nadia liked my New Yorker but not her San Diego Bagel which isn't like anything on google. We then checked out and Nadia dropped me at the Buttermilk Falls for a couple hours until 12pm while she went to the nearby thrift store. The Falls was a great hike, Gorge Trail was 1 hour. Lots of falls along the river by the trail.

Then we went to the Herbert Johnson Museum of Cornell University. A modern architectural marvel indeed. I would love to revisit this many times. In fact, I would recommend church retreat in Ithaca because of all these nature and the beautiful university. The museum has top floor glassed observatory of the whole city in a modern design with Asian antiques to enjoy on the side. It's not a big museum, but the combination of city/college views and worthy artifacts were amazing. We parked near the museum, paid with ParkMobile app. Museum entrance was free, like any college museums. We then did a quick run with e-bike/e-scooter.

Finally, with Nadia's "approval" we lunched at Tasty Hot Pot, the "local" restaurant. We had a debate on what constitutes "local" as I distinguished "local" from "traditional". 牛百叶麻辣烫 was not bad. Nadia had 鱼片干锅. I think not many people visit this place (despite popularity on google) because they included tips in the bill.

We then rushed 2-3 hours to Nike Factory store at Tannersville, PA, which closes at 6pm, we arrived around 5:45pm. Nadia bought a couple of basketball shoes, for Brian.

We reached home around 8pm.

Because the GoPro shoots large files, I do not store most of these files in my drive, unless they are really something (i.e. solar eclipse videos). But I uploaded all of them to Youtube.