Congratulations to everyone in Finger Lakes Wine Country who
contributed towards the creation of the Cayuga Lake Scenic Byway. A couple of weeks ago the Cayuga Lake Scenic Byway made one of the
top 10 American Road trips to visit featured through yahoo tourism. The picturesque 80-90 mile stretch of road stands
by such great highways as the Pacific Coast Highway Rt. 1 in California and the
Florida Keys. Here in New York in the Finger Lakes we are proud.
Now you say to yourself, how did this come to be? I just
recently learned that 20 years ago back in 1992 a woman known by most locals as
Moe Koch and now Moe Young and as she says “Forever Young” saw the potential in
the beauty of the land. She said I think Rt. 89 is the most beautiful road ever
with its’ falls, lake views and rolling vineyards that it would be great if we
could get this road listed as a Scenic Byway. That’s all it took and with a few other
visionaries such as Bill Hanson and a lot of hard work a “Star was Born”. The paperwork was insurmountable but with
many painstaking hours they kept their eyes on the goal and after much prose
and pictures the application was complete. New York State agreed and here we
are today.
Presently I am very fortunate to work with such an outstanding
group of individuals who never give-up. Just last week we had our first of a
series of informational signs placed at the top of the lake in Seneca Falls at
Montezuma Winery. It was a bit cold and quite windy but we unveiled the sign
just the same with a toast of Buttonwood Grove’s sparkling wine, Diva. We followed by a lovely reception where Cayuga
Lake Wine flowed and the culinary genius of Mary Reed dazzled us. There were Chardonnays Rieslings, Liberty Spy
Hard Cider plus white and red blends. Mary Reed who will be opening a
restaurant in Ovid in the very near future offered us a delectable taste of the
Finger Lakes. Salads with strawberries and pecans, cheese puffs, quiche, bacon delights, meatballs and
strawberry cream tarts plus truffles infused with raspberry and blackberry
wine. Who attended? Don’t you wish you did? Government Officials, business
owners and of course our trusty board members past and present.
So what’s cooking on the burners now? We’re in the process of working on a website
redesign. Our goal is to develop our new site to help visitors better
understand and access the resources along the byway. Another great project
coming up this fall is our Geocaching program, a real outdoor treasure hunting
game where players locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using
GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online spreading the word.
We will have 20 geo-caches spread between both sides of the lake.
Click here for the complete article on the Top 10 American
Road Trips.
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