Saying Goodbye

Today I had to say goodbye to everyone.  I had a great time in Rochester and maybe Myles will bring me back here the next time he comes.
This is me getting a goodbye kiss from Grandma as she is getting me ready for my travels.

This is the post office where she is taking me. We stopped here a few days ago so I could see where I would be going.

And now I'm on my way.

See  you in Mrs. Martineau's class.

Genesee River

The Genesee River runs from South to North, just like the Nile River in Africa.  It starts in Northern Pennsylvania and ends in Rochester, at Lake Ontario.  It is 158 miles long.  Halfway to Rochester it goes into a 25 mile gorge.  A gorge is a narrow passage through land.  Here is a picture of the gorge that runs through Letchworth State Park.

 As the river runs through Rochester there is the High Falls in the middle of the city.

 And this is where the River is close to emptying into Lake Ontario.  The bridge in the picture is no longer in use but it used to turn so that a train could cross over the river.

Lake Ontario

This is my last week here so I thought I should tell you about what is right in our backyard. It is Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario is one of the 5 Great Lakes that are between Canada and the United States.

Behind me is Irondequoit Bay and then Lake Ontario. It is the smallest of all the Great Lakes but it is the 14th largest lake in the world.  Although it's the smallest you can't even see to the other side because it goes all the way to Canada. 

You can see in this map all of the Great Lakes and the states that they touch.  Ontario and Quebec are provinces in Cananda.  They are like our states.  There's an easy way to remember the Great Lakes which I just learned so I want to share it with you.  Just remember the word HOMES.  Each letter is the beginning of the name of one of the lakes.
H - Huron
O - Ontario
M - Michigan
E - Erie
S - Superior
Lake Superior is the biggest of all of them so that's why it has the name of "Superior."

The Great Lakes have 20% of all the fresh water on the surface of the world. 

If I was staying longer I could go for a boat ride on the lake.  In 2004 there was a big fast ferry that went from Rochester to Toronto which is in Ontario, Canada on the other side of the lake.
This is a picture from back then of the ferry.  You can see how big it is in comparison to the other boats.  It was coming back to Rochester to dock at its home in the Genesee River (more about that next time).

Birds Birds Birds

Friday night we went to Margie and Darren's house to see their new kitchen.  It was really nice but what was even nicer was all the birds they had and I could get my picture taken with them.  They had a lot of different kinds of parrots, a lovebird and a cockatoo.

When they don't have company, the birds come out of their cages and sit on perches in the living room.  I didn't get to see this.   But I did hear them talk and one of them was really noisy.

MacKenzie Childs

On Sunday we drove down the road a few miles and went to MacKenzie-Childs.
Ceramic things are hand made here on a big farm in Aurora, NY on Cayuga Lake. http://www.mackenzie-childs.com/Content/HandmadeInAurora/
They have beautiful gardens

 Look how close these geese got to me

 I got to ride on this horse in the store.

 They paint things with lots of colors and designs and also black and white checks.

I'm lucky I didn't break anything because they are very expensive.

Here I am in front of the store which stands on a hill and overlooks the lake.

More Cayuga Lake

Here are some more of the things I did when we were at Cayuga Lake

I went rafting on the water

I went on a kayak

Sometimes I just relaxed on the lounge chair

We took a walk along the road to the house and saw a tree with sharp thorns. It's called a Honey Locust. The story for the thorns is that they were used to protect the tree from prehistoric animals and birds millions of years ago.

This is me and a panoramic view of the lake. This picture was made by taking 5 different pictures and putting them all together into one.

Here is what the 5 photos looked like before they were put together.  After we took the pictures we did it on the computer with software.  It's called stitching.

Cayuga Lake and the Finger Lakes

Memorial Day weekend we went to Amy's Lake House on Cayuga Lake.
Cayuga is one of a group of lakes known as the Finger Lakes. This is a picture of what they look like.

Can you guess why they're called the Finger Lakes?
The names of them are (from East to West or Right to Left): Otisco Lake, Skaneateles Lake, Owasco Lake, Cayuga Lake, Seneca Lake, Keuka Lake, Canandaigua Lake, Honeoye Lake, Canadice Lake, Hemlock Lake, and Conesus Lake.
Here, on a roadmap, you can see where they are and where Webster and Rochester are.

It took us less than an hour and a half to get from Webster to Cayuga Lake.
Cayuga Lake is the longest of the Finger Lakes, it is just under 40 miles long.  We were close to the northern end (top) of the lake but at the southern end is Cornell University and Ithaca College.
To learn more about the Finger Lakes you can go to this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_Lakes

Anyway, I had another fun weekend even though there weren't any kids there.  Bailey, the yellow lab that I met at the plant exchange was there and we had a lot of fun because she likes to play all the time.  She likes to swim after her toy in the water and bring it back.  I couldn't go in swimming though, Grandma wouldn't let me.  Larry was really glad I was there because we were the only boys.

I met Ashmi, who just moved here from India.

She had never heard of Flat Stanley before so I told her all about me and she talked about life in India.  She had servants to do everything for her in India, now she's going to have to learn to do a lot of things by herself, like hang pictures in her new apartment and wash her own dishes.

We went for a hike to the falls along Big Gully Creek. 

Along the way we saw a bunch of tadpoles

 and minnows

We had to walk in the Creek a lot and climb over trees that fell down.   When we finally got to the Falls, there wasn't that much water because it hasn't rained in a long time, but I got my picture taken anyway.

 Here I am with Grandma and Bailey with the Falls in the background

We saw some pretty butterflies