In December of 2012, we took a quick trip north. Melissa was interviewing for a new job and the HQ of the company was just outside of Rochester. It was just an over-nighter, we left Salem around noon and headed towards Harrisburg, where we’d head straight north along the Susquehanna, run past Lock Haven and Williamsport, and then cross the border in to New York near Corning. Being December, the light was pretty bad, it was foggy most of the way there, and by the time we hit New York, it was almost dark. We found Rochester without damage, and settled into our motel for the night. The next day, I dropped Melissa off at the company HQ and took a little tour into town and the shores of Lake Ontario. Being December, it wasn’t exactly picturesque tourist weather, but I got some interesting shots at a small park around the lake shore.
Gallery 1 – ‘Round about Rochester and Lake Ontario
I picked Melissa up after her interview, and we headed back south on Interstate 390 towards Corning and the Pennsylvania border. This was interesting territory. The Interstate is an easy drive of course, running down the valleys of the Finger Lakes Region. The weather cleared as we went farther south. Since it had been pitch dark when we came up here the day before, we had a chance to check out the un-prepossessing scenery. The interstate wriggled a little bit back and forth heading south among the hills and valleys of the outer Finger Lakes region. Along much of the route, we seemed to be hugging the western edge of a ridge, with a wide valley to our left (east) and then another ridgeline a couple of miles farther out. We headed on, and passed Corning mid-afternoon.
Gallery 2 – Mid New York State along I-390 and I-86
South of Corning, branched onto a new chunk of the Interstate system, signed as I-99. It used to be the old US 15 highway. It’s only formal down to the border with Pennsylvania, where the road reverts back to US 15. It’s also called the Susquehanna Highway once you get south of Williamsport. At the PA border, there was a neat new tourist info center, fancier than almost anything I’d ever seen in Pennsylvania. Odd, for a border crossing that is probably about 22nd out of 30 of all the highways leading into and out of PA. But it was a neat place, so we walked around and took some shots in the sunshine which we hadn’t seen for about four days.
US 15 here continued the topography, easy back-and-forthing across the ridges and valleys, a little climb here, a little descent there, we headed towards Williamsport. Being December, it got dark around 4 pm, especially running down the valleys. I’d have taken more pictures, but some dope forgot to pack an extra battery for his camera…