News On Hand: Stony Brook State Park

Some of us met up on Saturday to go have a picnic and hike in Stony Brook State Park; about a 45 minute drive from Rochester through beautiful countryside. Since leaving Upstate New York 17 years ago, most people I’ve run into have the mistaken perception that all of New York is paved with concrete, you know, like the city! In fact, Upstate New York is quite the opposite with its lush greenery and ancient mountains, natural lakes and rivers, hundreds of miles of forest and farmland even right outside of its cities. It is a beautiful state with distinctive seasons and culture that I enjoy and which I miss. The views of farmland from the hillsides we drove on in the distance have always reminded me of looking at patchwork quilts with their various patterns and shades of color. The weather was perfect for a day outdoors with the family.

Lindsay & Greg, who are just 3 1/2 months apart in age, both spotted these Cookie Monster shirts the day before and bought them with their own spending money. I think every adult present, including myself, questioned them on this purchase. They assured each that these would be “cool” to wear even in 7th grade and after all, High Schoolers are wearing these too. What do we know? Regardless, they LOVE these shirts and were quite cute wearing them together.

We met for our picnic, everyone bringing their own food & drinks, at some picnic tables right next to the gorge in the lower end of the park. Since NYS no longer funds life guards the park no longer dams the water for swimming in the gorge, however we did not let that stop us from having a good time.

We decided to hike after lunch and began our climb through the gorge figuring we had enough time to reach the upper falls and then return. The whole hike, which would have taken us on a loop, would have taken hours and we had a one year old along who would have had to be carried the entire trail.

My older children have been here before but Lindsay barely remembers it . My youngest two were here for the first time. Pops, lovingly referred to as “Bops” by Nathan, hiked along with us sporting his sun hat and camera. He takes much better photos than I do with his camera and he’s got a good eye for photography. Kaitlyn is pleasantly content with her Elmo hat purchase.

There seemed to be lots of people adventuring down among the rocks in the stream bed of the gorge and we just couldn’t help ourselves. We had to get in there among the granite and shale and feel the cool rush of water on our hot feet too.

With flat rocks being plentiful here, Tristan taught himself to skip them. I remember my Dad taking the time to teach me to skip stones back when I was a little girl so skipping stones will always remind me of my Dad. We had to persuade the children that there was more to see and we should continue our climb.

The kids were happy with the waterfalls that they were seeing but we moved them along telling them that they hadn’t gotten to the “big” waterfall yet. The view from the trail is beautiful through here in summer and autumn.

The path meanders back and forth along the gorge with wonderful old bridges to cross such as this one. Many items of workmanship throughout the state such as this helped put men back to work during the Great Depression.

Nathan & his Dad wait together on the side of the bridge for everyone to catch up. On the other side of the trail Nathan was intrigued by the water running down the side of the cliff, dripping and forming tiny waterfalls of their own. .

In the distance we spy another larger waterfall on the left. The center picture is the view looking up. The picture on the right is from the side of the trail looking down.

Somehow my sister made it up with Jackson in his stroller, I think with some help from our Dad. They did not climb as high as some of us did. Haley did climb to the top of the falls with me.

Kaitlyn made the climb up the stone stair case with me as well so she could enjoy the view. And I spy my Dad, Molly and Jackson way down in the distance when my Dad took a picture of me taking a picture of him. I’m sure he got a better photo. My camera doesn’t do too well with that sort of distance.

We began the descent down next to the falls instead of continuing on. It was starting to get late enough, not everyone was able to hike any further and we wanted some more time to explore the stream bed.

Nathan decided to brave it, got his feet wet and then there was no turning back. He loved it and started immediately collecting stones and stuffing them in his pockets; as many as he could. He was thrilled with this activity and didn’t mind the water temperature one bit. I took notice of how clear the water seemed to be.

Tristan was a great big cousin to his little cousin Jackson. Nathan and Jackson spent some time together bonding and both little boys, 13 months apart, loved being around their Pops, aka “Bops”. My Dad is really good with them which is why I think they take to him so easily. Of course Jackson KNOWS Pops but my Nathan doesn’t really know him at all.

Jackson borrowed Nathan’s shoes and socks for playing around in the rocks. He needed something to protect his feet and the shoes fit pretty well. Kaitlyn just took her shoes off and waded into the stream bed, also loving the rocks. Nathan discovered that in this particular spot (right) he could throw fairly sizable rocks and the stream of water was so strong in spite of its shallowness that the rocks would ride the current right back to Nathan. He did not tire of this experiment/phenomenon for the rest of the time we had to spend.

Nathan was pretty wet and starting to get cold. But he couldn’t get enough of those rocks. Kaitlyn was having herself a ball as well. I figure the dirtier the kids are the more fun they had. They were having a lot of fun.

Meanwhile Greg, Lindsay & Tristan were IN the water. Many times in the summer this water is about 58 degrees. I think with the heat New York has been experiencing along with the rest of us, that the water was a little bit warmer than that on this day. But it still felt great. It was refreshingly cool.

So much for no swimming.

They were soaked and these kids were having a ball.

Nathan took a plunge into it from a slippery rock and I caught him. He LOVED it but there was no question that it was time to go back and find a towel and a change of clothes.

On the way back we stopped at Don’s in Brighton and picked up some quarts of chocolate custard. We’d been waiting all week for frozen custard. They threw in some cones and we brought it back to share with everyone around the kitchen table.