Monday morning, we called the Enterprise place just up the road, and as advertised, they came out to pick me up. I rode back to the office with them, and after filling out all the paperwork, we had a nice little Mazda MX-something or other for a couple of days. I drove back to the park, and picked up Melissa and Kamryn. We decided to head into Canandaigua proper and make a quick run through the Walmart for supplies, and then had lunch. Our plan was to tour around town for the day.
We’d seen a listing for an old Gilded Age mansion in the middle of town that offered walking tours and such, and it looked interesting, so we cleaned up our table at the Roy Rogers and headed to the Sonnenburg shack. Built in the latter part of the 19th by some industrial magnate or such, it had fallen into some disrepair by the time of the Depression, then was turned into a temporary VA hospital during and just after the Second World War, and then was taken over by a conservancy, fixed up, and presented to the public. First, we toured around the gardens and greenhouse area, then ambled up the pathway in the front lawn up to the old pile.
Once we got in the place, it was pretty interesting – it gave a nice picture of late-Gilded Age semi-rich mansions. This guy was no Gould or Rockefeller, but he had some bucks, it seemed. I guess banking in upstate New York a hundred years ago had its perks. Henceforth, some of the rooms :
We found a door to to the outside world and wandered about the gardens and back-yard stuff for a while. It was pretty Italianate, if not totally rococco in spots. But the gardens were interesting, and there was an old carriage house full of birds and stuff, and fountains and all the normal acoutremonts of a Gilded Age mansion of the wealthy. Must have cost a ton of money to keep up, though.
After I got some shots of the whole place from various angles, and one of Melissa and Kammy, we wandered back down across the grounds and out to the greenhouses and gardens again, to see them from the other side.
Once we had our fill of the mansion, we decided to head over to the park at the edge of the actual Lake Canandaigua, one of the famous Finger Lakes. Judging by the size, though, I think this is the pinky. It was an interesting lakeside area, with a couple rows of gaily painted boathouses, some ducks and other assorted water fowl, and then over on one side, we found an old paddle wheel steamer being used as a tourist boat, and I got Kamryn to pose like the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. Or so I thought….
There was still plenty of daylight left, so we just headed out of town on the nearest paved road for a couple of miles, just to get a feel for the upstate New York countryside. It was nice, and pleasant, if not completely breathtaking. Back in town, we headed out to the Kampground, and settled in for the night. Tomorrow, Melissa would head off to her conference in a fancy new hotel about 15 miles north of us, and Kammy and I would pal around for the day.