Staycation With Liz and Pat

Our friend Liz suggested we join her for a "stay-cation" trip down to Skaneateles, NY. Skaneateles, about an hour and a half from Rochester, is a resort town on a really beautiful lake. Most of the little towns in western New York State have had quite a hard time of it -- there just isn't any industry to keep them going. But because Skaneateles is on what must be the most beautiful of the finger lakes, it is actually doing quite well.

Our first stop was at Doug's Fish Fry for lunch. We all had the fried haddock -- which was very lightly battered and fried crisp and delish. (My stomach is actually growling as I write this. It was that good! I might just hop back in the car and have it for dinner!) We are fussy about our fish fries here in in Rochester, and Doug's definitely measured up. It was served with hand cut french fries. I liked them, but this wasn't the universal opinion. They just weren't crispy enough for 3 of the 4 of us. The cole slaw was a big hit, however. Cole slaw is one of those things that you tend to just ignore. It's never the star of the show, for sure. But this was cole slaw like no other, with enough onion and celery and a very light dressing.

After lunch, we strolled around and poked our noses into the shops. Nothing was really irresitable, but we did find a chocolate shop. The heath bar-esque thing I had was good.

After our stroll, we ambled over to the dock and boarded the good ship Judge Ben Wiles for a sightseeing cruise. Skaneateles has some pretty spectacular "camps" as they call lakeside mansions here. There was one place that they told us cost $20 million. And, oh by the way, they were adding on to it. It looked like there was going to be quite the sizable addition, based on the construction we saw.

 There wasn't a lot of boat traffic, which was nice. The lake had a very serene feel to it. This is definitely a place I would recommend to you, if you are in the area. I hope we will get back there again soon.