The final portion of our 2024 spring road trip led us to Hector, NY in the Finger Lakes. Again, I really had no idea what to expect. We chose the area because we found an Airbnb that we loved—the most beautiful, quaint little cabin, and because I had always wanted to go hiking in the gorge at Watkin’s Glen. Unfortunately, as it’s still too early in the year, Watkin’s Glen was closed, which is probably ok, because I am positive that husband and I will be returning to this area someday.
Our little cabin was brand new, and therefore incredibly clean. It was private, and had a decent view of Seneca Lake, along with quick access to the main road. Surprisingly, this little slice of heaven could sleep 6, although the bed in the loft seemed rather tight and cramped, but we didn’t need to go up there as there were only us 2 and the dog.
I have gotten slightly ahead of myself here. We started this portion of our trip driving from Saratoga Springs, NY to Hector. Instead of just heading straight to the cabin, we had to check out some of the wineries along the way. I am suddenly blanking on the number of wineries in the Finger Lakes, but it’s something like 300 or 400, so we had no time to lose! If you can see the map below, all of the little spots marked in red are wineries.
Winery #1 was Zugibe Vineyards, and arguably my favorite winery of the ones we stopped at. Whether this was because it was the first and I was so excited to get out of the car and drink wine, or because it really was nice, I’m not 100% sure. They had a heated, dog friendly patio with cute little mosaic topped tables that faced out over the lake. We drank a flight of wine and just sat and enjoyed ourselves. We weren’t ready yet to learn about wines or talk with a sommelier or be pressured into stating our opinions. We just wanted to relax, and this place offered that.
Winery #2 was Idol Ridge Winery. This place is also dog friendly, but not nearly as nice. The experience starts out by waiting in line at a front desk where you have to decide right off the bat which wines you want to try and pay for them. Then you are directed to a small table and your wines come delivered in basically a muffin tin. The space that we sat in to drink was extremely crowded with little knickknacks and other breakable things for sale, which made it not an ideal place at all for a shy dog who is trying to cower away from the hoards of people attempting to pet her. Buying bottles of wine to take home was not even an option since we would’ve had to wait in line again at the main desk where a large crowd of people were already trying to get in.
The third stop of the night was Scale House Brewery. We waited quite awhile for a table, but both the pizza and the brews were delicious.
The first morning we had breakfast at a small diner called Toni’s. This place is so good that you have to get there early, and you have to expect a bit of a wait. The homemade sausage was the highlight of the meal. I think every person that worked there stopped to ask us how we were doing and how the food was tasting.
We went back to the cabin to pick up the dog, and then made our way to Taughannock Falls State Park. Since I couldn’t do the Watkin’s Glen hike, I absolutely INSISTED that we hike to this waterfall. It was stunning! We started out by driving to the overlook and viewing the waterfall from the top, and then made our way down below to hike up to it. I wouldn’t even call it a “hike”, as it was a nice flat even path the entire way…perfect for a 13 year old dog who is slowing down.
Having completed the highlight of my day, we dropped the dog back off at the cabin and proceeded to get to as many as wineries as we could tolerate. I think we were able to hit 4 more this day. To save time, I won’t go into detail about every single winery, but I will list them here so that I remember: Lamoreaux Landing Wine Cellars, Wagner Vineyards, Damiani, and Atwater Vineyards. Each of them provided us a completely different experience. We learned a lot, tried some new things, and had a great time until I reached the point that I couldn’t possibly take one more sip of wine. We had dinner at the Grist Iron Brewery, and then went back to our Airbnb to have a fire in the fire pit.
The following morning we packed up our gear and made our way to Indiana for a quick one night stop before finally getting home to Madison. I can’t wait to come back to the Finger Lakes someday. I would love to try more breweries and wineries, hike in Watkin’s Glen, maybe go charter fishing on one of the lakes, and see what else we can find to do that we missed on our initial research. Of all of the places that we stopped on our New England road trip, we saved the best for last and went out with a bang!
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