Safe, satisfying road trips to the Canadian border
COVID-19-ERA TRAVEL IS A CHALLENGE, BUT SCENIC ROAD TRIPS AWAIT CAREFUL TOURISTS ON 4 WHEELS
Aplanned July getaway originally was going to be a postCOVID road trip, but as Connecticut’s infection numbers chilled, other parts of the country caught fire after Memorial Day and July Fourth. So our mid-July trip became an in-COVID-era excursion.
The upside: It was to New York State, a place that has had some success in limiting the spread of the coronavirus that has ruined 2020 for so many victims, loved ones and businesses.
Travel during COVID is fraught with challenges: closed entertainment venues, beaches, bars, fitness rooms, pools. Masks are required in public areas when not eating or social distancing; no daily housekeeping for hotel stays of more than one night, limited capacity at restaurants, concern about sharing elevators.
But travel destinations are adapting, and you can still manage a good time if you’re careful, alert and spend much of your time outdoors.
We sampled two locations of the Harbor Hotels Collection run by Hart Hotels, one in the Finger Lakes on Seneca Lake and the other on the U.S.-Canada border on the St. Lawrence River — both a five-hour drive from Connecticut. (Hey, you’re safe in the car, right?)
The Harbor Hotel Watkins Glen sits at the mouth of Seneca Lake (the largest and deepest of the Finger Lakes), overlooking a train track, a marina, pier with iconic pagoda-shaped structure and adjacent rock pier at a right angle that extends your evening stroll.
The hotel’s architecture and furnishings are a head above other area properties in relaxed FLX, as it’s sometimes called, and very similar in layout and appearance to two of the other five properties in the collection, the Chautauqua Harbor Hotel (2.5 hours west in Celoron, N.Y.) and the one in Thousand Islands.
The food and drink were solid, with a cheese board for two featuring aged New York cheddar, a hot lobster dip appetizer, three salads, Maine lobster rolls (cold only), a burger and five or six entrees including grilled ribeye steak, miso glazed salmon and black pepper fettuccini with gruyere cheese, chicken and sliced snap peas. The cuisine lacked some gourmet flourishes, such as farm-to-table branding or delicate artistry in presentation, but the food was also free of pretense and served on attractive white plates with good silverware and cloth napkins (not a given in COVID time).
Breakfast can be pricey, at about $36 or so for two with tip, but the hotel sets up free, hot coffee on a buffet table outside the elevator on your floor at about 6:30 a.m. (next to the hand sanitizer, of course).
A 15-minute walk through town gets you to the entrance of the oft-spectacular Watkins Glen State Park, which is scenic anytime but eye-popping after a hard rain when the waterfalls roar and Glen Creek moves briskly through the 400-foot-deep, narrow gorge. (Think springtime or fall.) You might want to drive there and pay to park since park admission is free and there’s a 1.5-mile hike coming your way with 832 stone steps in the main attraction.
COVID concerns have turned the Gorge Trail into a one-way path (not a bad thing for such a narrow stretch) but it means your first real chance to get back down to the entrance is via the Indian Trail Loop on the high forested side of the gorge. There’s also a north entrance with parking and a large swimming pool there, which we could have used on the 90-degree day we visited.
For racing-fan families, you’ll enjoy the street markers across from the city-side entrance noting past winners and the start and finish line of the Watkins Glen Grand Prix. Not far away is the Watkins Glen International Raceway, too.
Other scenic gems in the area, in addition to the other lakes, are Buttermilk Falls State Park and Robert Treman State Park just below Cayuga Lake in Ithaca and, on a southern part of Cayuga Lake, Taughannock Falls. On the way to that spot, we found Glenhaven Farm & Winery in Trumansburg, which alone is worth a long drive for blueberry lovers. The picking field was huge and the plants were so full of berries you didn’t need to move much at all to fill a bucket. Can you keep a bag of berries cold and safe enough for a few days until you get home? We did, with my wife’s careful organizing and a ready cooler.
Much of what fills a cooler for FLX fans, of course, will be white, red, pink and adult-aimed, since the sides of these lakes are filled with scores of very good wineries with names such as Wiemer, Lakewood, Fox Run, Fulkerson, Hector, Penguin Bay, Frontenac Point, Lucas and Pompous Ass (sold in a can, appropriately).
The day before we arrived, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a directive that bars and wineries must not serve alcohol without food, so most of the places we visited wanted to know if we had a reservation for a seating at an indoor or outdoor table (and you’ll need to buy at least a bag of chips or pretzels as food). We quickly went from tasters to collectors along the wine trail, telling staff we were just shopping in the store, and they waved us in. A couple of friendly staffers even poured us a quick taste of a specific vintage, but the casual stand-at-a-bar tasting experience is out for now. (Do bring a designated driver if you’re going to do tastings at more than one winery, or hire an Uber. Trust us on this one.)
Tourist places (including the wineries and frozen custard driveins such as deftly named Fingerlicks) were very slow or closed in late March, April and May. Hotel and other workers were furloughed through June, in some cases. But a hotel staffer told us business picked up nicely in July, although the Harbor Hotels’ wedding and convention business obviously took a lingering hit with those events postponed. (We saw at least a half-dozen bridesmaid parties touring wineries now that they’re approaching the hopeful reschedule dates in late summer or fall.)
Three hours north up Interstate 81 is Harbor Hotel Thousand Islands, on a jut-out in the St. Lawrence River that is the sleepy village of Clayton. The hotel, built upon the site of the former Frink Snow Plow Co. (Carl Frink invented the V-Plow), is much the same as the one in Watkins Glen, with comfortable beds and furnishings, a concierge, virtually identical restaurant menu and an indoor pool, but the view is even better and the lawn and patio are a bit larger.
All the land you see across the several-mile-wide river is from islands, including adjacent Washington Island, which you can reach via the riverwalk and then a causeway two blocks down the street.
The major attraction in the region, aside from maybe a fishing trip on the river, is Boldt Castle, reachable in a 3.5-hour cruise from Clayton (about $25 each) that takes you past many of 1,864 islands in the area. The Clayton Island Tours excursion (formerly called the Two Nations tour but now excluding Canada because of Canada’s COVID concern about us), features a lot of intriguing information about islander life and history.
The Boldt story is intriguing: Prussian immigrant and turn-ofthe-century millionaire George C. Boldt, who worked his way to proprietor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, set out to build a Rhineland-style castle on an island in Alexandria Bay, according to Boldtcastle.com. The structure was to be a display of love for his wife, Louise, mother of their two young children.
Beginning in 1900, the Boldt family spent summers in the area at the Wellesley House near Boldt’s Wellesley Island Farms while 300 workers labored on the six-story, 120-room castle, complete with tunnels, a powerhouse, Italian gardens, a drawbridge and alster tower (children’s playhouse). Boldt changed the name from Hart Island to Heart Island and even had workers alter its shape to resemble a heart.
But then Louise suddenly died at 42 (possibly of a heart attack, ironically). Boldt wired the workers to drop their tools, “stop all construction.” He never returned to the island, and the castle sat unfinished for more than seven decades. In 1977, the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority acquired the property and decided that with some renovation and net revenues from the castle operation, it could be preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. About three floors have been completed in that quest, with items from the Boldt estate contributed for authenticity.
It’s a strange feeling to see a large, fully equipped kitchen of the time that was never used — part of an impressive, self-guided tour. The Boldt Castle visit complements other intriguing sights and facts about the area. You’ll see an ocean freighter or two, traveling to the Great Lakes, gliding through the freshwater bay, hear how the wide river generally freezes over in the winter (except last year) and how Thousand Islands dressing was invented in the area.
No state has defeated COVID yet, of course, but a regional, Northeast road trip can be done with relatively low risk, lighter traffic volumes, modest gas prices and the same lovely scenery. Hotel destinations, meanwhile, are happy to have visitors again, even as you converse with a concierge who is wearing a mask and face shield or a front desk staffer behind Plexiglas.