On the Road Again (or Canandaigua Getaway, Getaway)

Click here to get some listening music for this blog. "On the Road Again" Baltimore Civic Center 4/19/82

For those of you who have been following along with the delightful drama that is my life... you may have picked up on the following.. 

• There are no kids (of ours) around again this summer... The coming and going has slowed, so it's grown-up play time.
• I just changed jobs AGAIN and sort of have the next two months off, not on purpose, but I can't say that I'm exactly bummed out, those two months being July and August.
• And what do you know, all this is happening just in time for the Furthur Summer Tour!  Time for me to take a little summer tour myself and catch a few shows! The Finger Lakes and Coney Island show tickets are on my bulletin board and I'm ready to plan some fun for my husband and me.

I took a little yellow pad, wrote a list of things we'd need, drove over to our local AAA office to get  a map. AAA is a wonderful resource.  I'll say right now that that although the woman helping me was as nice as could be, when I asked what she'd suggest for this road trip, she replied,
"Oh, my husband and I don't like to drive.  We only fly and we always go to Disney.  We love the Magic Kingdom."
(Yep, that's just who you want working for you at the Automotive Association of America.)  No ideas, no hints... nothing.
Nevertheless, I left with two car-ride mini-trash bags filled with a TripTik, a few Tour Books and a stack of maps.  (She also threw in a map of Long Island for our Coney Island trip and a Boston map for future trips to Boston.)

Figure 1: Triple A Treasure Trove

My vacation began Thursday, July 5.  Why not July 4? Why indeed...

My husband and I thought we'd stay in town for the local celebration, which includes live music and fireworks.  How silly of us, as the town moved the 4th of July to the 7th of July (Saturday night).  So on the 4th, we did what we've done for years, which is stand in our backyard and watch the fireflies, and wait for the fireworks from the next town, which we can see over the tree-tops.

(Not great pictures, and to tell the truth, not a great view, but there you have it.)

The morning of the 5th, we packed up the car, said good-bye to our pets and headed up north... destination: Watkins Glen NY.  Why? 

One reason.  The famous Grateful Dead / Allman Brothers Concert of July 28, 1973.  My husband and I had listened to a tape of the soundcheck from July 27 '73 for years, until it became unplayable.  Now I have the show on my iPod, and we played it on our long drive from NJ. We thought of Watkins Glen as a sort of Deadhead hallowed ground.  What to do when we got there?  I had a few ideas... but the main thing was to visit this town. It was a long drive and once there we were shocked to imagine over half a million people in this tiny town (which looked like it had not yet recovered).  

To hear a great version of the Allman Brothers Mountain Jam with the Grateful Dead playing in, click here. 

We stayed at a sub-par motel, with the last parking spot available, right next to an overflowing dumpster.  In Watkins Glen there are three things to do.  Go to the Speedway, check out Lake Seneca or explore the Gorge.  The Speedway happens to be the site of aforementioned concert, but we are not fans of car racing, and felt no need to go to the actual site and dorkily guess where the stage might have been.  But, being the proper tourists that we are, we did take advantage of our other two options.  Thursday night we hastily booked a "Burgers and Blues Cruise" on Lake Seneca, where a band played quite passable blues and we dined on not quite passable burgers as we motored up the lake.  The scenery and sunset made the trip more than worthwhile.   The cash bar on the "cruise" was a pretty good deal, as we are used to steeper prices down in the metro area.  


When we are on vacation I like to chat it up with other travelers, and locals alike.  Our one interaction with another guy left us an awkward spot.  My husband and I had finished our meal and we were standing out on the deck of the Seneca Princess wishing the food would somehow digest.  We were enjoying the scenery and our cocktails, when a guy started to make friendly conversation with my husband.  He had a tattoo on his face, and a cigarette between his remaining teeth.  He was probably in his 40's but due to what I can only guess has been a life of hard-living, he looked like he was anywhere from 35 - 60. 

 "Hey man, do you know the song 'Smoke on the Water?'" he asked.  My husband said he did, and I, of course, tune in on this conversation.

"Wasn't this the lake it was written about?" he asked my husband.

Oh brother.

Before my husband can really even answer, (and he has no idea what the guy is talking about)  I say,

"Um, no. This is Lake Seneca, in New York. That was about a fire in a bar on Lake Geneva. You know, in Switzerland?" The "You idiot" was not said but even I could hear it in my tone.  My husband went off to get dessert.  I felt terrible.  To make amends I said to the dude, 

"Sorry if I sounded a little bit dismissive.  I'm not the expert on Lake Seneca.  We are only here because the Grateful Dead once played a concert in Watkins Glen."  I give him a BIG SMILE.  "And Geneva is the town at the north end of this lake... so I can see why you'd think..."

"Oh," he interrupts, with a look of disgust, "you're Deadheads." And he turned around to speak with a woman next to him. 

I felt that my penitence was standing there and taking 6 or 7 minutes off my life by breathing in their second-hand smoke (on the water).
To learn more about this little chapter of musical history, click here.   To hear the classic Smoke on the Water, which admittedly, I then couldn't get out of my head, click here.  (This is a live version, the album versions all had ads in front of them which ruins the karma of the blog, in my humble opinion.)

After the cruise, we walked back down the main street of the town, we knew that this had been our best bet for an evening activity, every store, restaurant and bar was closed up for the night.


The next day we checked out of our little motel room and headed for the Gorge.  What a great surprise.  Although the temperature was soaring up into the 90's this mile and a half hike up and down into the waterfalls was mostly cool and always breathtakingly beautiful.  My pictures don't come close to doing it justice, but we were in awe of the beauty of this place.

We left Watkins Glen and headed to Corning to check out the museum.  Also a pleasant surprise, although we wished we could have gone into the town for lunch instead of the museum's cafeteria.  But it was Friday, concert day, and we wanted to get up to Canandaigua, find our hotel, America's Best Value (turns out it was!) and check in, and then find the concert venue, as this was new territory for us and we weren't sure how long things would take.  

Our timing worked out just fine and we got to the Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center (CMAC) in time to eat our very meager dinner and have a cold drink before braving the 97 degree heat and leaving the a/c of the car.  The crowd seems different than the usual cast of characters... I can't put my finger on it... even now as I'm reflecting back a few days later... were they locals who come out to see every show and not really fans?  Were they wine enthusiasts (we were in the heart of New York wine country after all) who thought they'd see what the Grateful Dead were up to after all these years?  Tourists in the right place at the right time hoping to hear a greatest hits show?  If you are reading this and you were there... I'd love to get your feedback on the show and the crowd.   

Once the music started, I became even more baffled.  As a veteran concert-goer, I know that it sometimes takes one or two songs to get the sound mixed just right.  But even at the cavernous Madison Square Garden, where the noise bounces all over the place, eventually, no matter where you are sitting, it does settle in to place.  But much to my deep chagrin, that was not the case at Canandaigua.  For nearly the entire first set, the sound was entirely muddy and the vocals were inaudible.  And we had pretty good seats.  So good in fact, that I got some very good photos. (See for yourself...) I was shocked, and very disappointed, that a nice little amphitheater did not have better sound.  This, coupled with the 97 degree heat made for a very lack-luster first set.  And it seemed that the band was not giving it their all.  

I started to bum out.

I hadn't heard sound this bad since The Boston Garden Show in 1979.  Then they played a pretty nice version of Crazy Fingers.  And my husband said with a smile, 

"Next week we have two nights at Coney Island.  Cheer up."

And I did.  Mason's Children was a rare and unexpected treat.  We got a nice cold beer and a big pretzel during the break, and the sun set, cooling the air.

The sound got better during the break, and the crowd woke up.  

Bob and Phil gifted us with a Scarlet Begonias->Eyes of the World->The Eleven and life was perfect again.  I laughed to myself thinking how Smoke on the Water would be the perfect encore.**  Instead it was Touch of Gray, their legitimate hit, besides Truckin' and a real crowd-pleaser. 

We drove back to our hotel, hot, tired and not too disappointed with the night.  I wanted to find other Deadheads and ask what they thought of the show and the venue, but there were none to be found.  The next morning we spotted a few fellow fans at Denny's for breakfast, but they were so busy complaining about the service (it was indeed horrible) that we did not invite them into lively conversation about the show.

While we were waiting for our breakfast, and let me just say, we had PLENTY of time... we plotted out our day's activities.  As I mentioned above, the Finger Lakes Region is known for its wineries.   So using the maps, guidebooks and handy iPhone, I found a winery that also had a brewery, and featured live music and a restaurant.  Sounds good!  We agreed that if we ever got out of Denny's we'd head over to this spot.  

After a lot of driving through beautiful farm land and a lot of vineyards, we found the place and enjoyed the afternoon.  It seemed it was a destination for bridal parties, there were three, and people were in very lively moods.  I don't drink wine, so I was the designated driver and photographer.  I believe I didn't miss much as my husband took many tastes and tossed out the rest of nearly every wine he sampled.  We did enjoy the beer tasting, but it was too hot to drink more than just a taste.  It was fun to sit in the shade and listen to the bluegrass band play and watch one particular bridal party mix it up with a motorcycle gang, all of whom were getting silly on some very sweet, very fruity raspberry wine.*  I tried to surreptitiously take a picture of these two vastly different worlds colliding over sparkly pink soda-wine.  By now the band was playing Marshall Tucker's "Heard it in a Love Song," which everyone was singing (incorrectly and incoherently) along to... "Purty Little Lo-o-ove Song... C'ain't be wrong!" 

Just the right music...

And a loopy bride-to-be and a biker get to talking...

And before you know it, worlds collide to a "purty little love song!"

  
After a long day of driving (me) and drinking (my husband) we ended up at our final destination, a lovely Bed and Breakfast in near one of the lakes.  It was then that my beloved husband  decided to tell me that he hates Bed and Breakfasts.  I sensed something was wrong as we drove into the parking lot and we were shown to our lovely room... the Blue Room.  There was no lock on the door or shades on the windows, and the proprietor was just SUPER friendly and just the tiniest bit racist... and breakfast was at 8:00, oh was that too early? ok, 8:30.  I had no idea that my husband didn't like B&B's, but we did not hang around long... we headed into town and to our great joy and surprise, got there just in time for the town's July 4th Parade (yes, critical readers, it was on Saturday evening the 7th!) so we enjoyed festivities after all!  

King and Queen of the Parade.  Oh, is it gonna be rough
when school starts back again and they realize they AREN'T royalty.

Why march when you can ride with your band on a flatbed truck? Why didn't my town think of this?

We found dinner at a local tavern that had a nice varied menu, and then hung out to hear the live band (heaven forbid a day go by that we did not hear live music).  To make the day just perfect, we even saw fireworks over the lake as we walked back to our car.  

Dipping our feet in Lake Cayuga, so we can say we did.

The next day we went home via Ithaca so that we could do a little shopping and eat at the famous Moosewood Restaurant.  The shopping was a great success (for me) but unfortunately, the Moosewood Restaurant was closed for lunch on Sundays.  We did have a great lunch at a Mexican place, and then we were on our way home.

So are we!

I plugged in the iPod and set it on "random."  Mark Knopfler  gets us started for a nice long string of musical selections that the iPod has magically chosen for this mellow ride.  I checked in with our kids and called the dog-sitter.  Just for fun I looked at the set lists online of the shows that Furthur played in Philly ...  and took out my little yellow pad of paper and started making my list of things to do before the Coney Island shows.  

The author, enjoying a pretzel  at the show.

*My comment to the bartender (BARTENDER? here I go again... ) local 21 year-old who's only talent to work here is that he can "pour," regarding that pink raspberry wine: "This must be the wine people use to get their kids to drink wine."  He looked at me like I was the worst parent on earth.  Clearly he has never seen some of the parents one sees regularly at Costco.


**Smoke on the Water is not a Grateful Dead song, it's a Deep Purple Song, and The Dead have never played it, as far as I know.  Okay, now I'm going to have to Google that.  I'm going to publish this anyhow, but I'll correct this if I find out otherwise.  How cool would that be??