Thursday 6th May 2010

Today we began with an early start at the Ithaca Sunrise Rotary Club at The Royal Court Restaurant. The Club began at 0715 hrs so there were some sleepy looking members of the team this morning.

We did our presentation without the powerpoint and it went well. The Club were very friendly and there were lots of interesting questions for us. Especially 'who do you think will win in the football between the USA and England?' I predicted a 3-0 victory to England, which was slightly controversial.

After this we headed to Taughannock Falls with Peter Bellochs and Doug Armstrong. This is a very beautiful place with a high waterfall. It is very picturesque but the sound it makes is quite amazing.

We have then travelled to the Watkins Glen State Park and walked down the Gorge Trail. Notice the word 'down.' We decided it would be better for all concerned to walk down the trail as to walk up it would mean hundreds of steps and we could not cope with this kind of exercise after all the food we have consumed on this trip. It is quite a long trail and I have put a couple of pictures up showing the kind of places we walked through. It was very impressive, the layers of rock showed the history of the landscape in a beautiful way and we even got to walk behind a waterfall (although we did get a little bit wet).

Following all this exertion we have headed for lunch at Veraisons Restaurant which is on Lake Seneca. The interior and exterior was fabulous. The views of the lake were second to none and the empty wine bottle tree was a testament to the good wines sold there. The food was also delicious and prepared us for our next test . . . . wine tasting.

We went to the Glenora Cellar which is directly next to Veraisons and here we sampled many

different wines (and yet more food) and James tried his best to take a whole barrel with him!!!

We have then headed back towards Ithaca. On the way we have stopped at 'Life's so Sweet! Chocolates.' This is a fabulous little chocolate shop in Trumansburg and it is run by Darlynne Overbaugh (the daughter of Tom Overbaugh who was kind enough to take us to New York City). She creates all kinds of unusual chocolate based products (including chocolate covered chips (crisps)) and we all ended up spending quite a bit of time and money in there.

We have then popped into the centre of Ithaca where Tom has finally opened his wallet for the first time on this exchange (we had to duck out the way of the cloud of moths).

From there we have headed to Groton Rotary Club to give our final presentation of the trip.
It was a great evening and we were very warmly received. The club members were fun and again we were asked many interesting questions. It is slightly sad to have completed the final presentation as it shows we're near the end of the trip but at the same time we were all pleased that the pressure was off. That is until we are back in the UK.

I would like to say a big thank you to Peter and Doug for being our chauffeurs today and looking after us literally from dawn until dusk. It was much appreciated.