h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This sounds like a fun place. But tell me, next time I'm in the area, what else is there to do in Ithaca?

Funny you should ask about things to do. I have another listing, The Ithaca Commons, that is hopefully soon to make the approved list. Also I'm working on a an entry for my favorite local pubs. In the next week or two I'll be making entries for various resteraunts, and local wineries around the Ithaca area.

We're a scenic place, great for a relaxing vacation. There are many state parks, a nice lake, many wineries, camp grounds, hiking trails, gorges, sailing and fishing opportunities, and an ecclectic, diverese community made possible by the fact that Cornell University is located here. The University being here, since it has an international draw, helps add a great diversity to the culture of this small community.

hey there, jqr. we keep running across each other, but it just so happens that i'm from ithaca, and there are loads of things to do, if you're curious. if you're an outdoorsy type, i highly recommend treman state park, which has very large gorges and waterfalls. there's also taughannock state part, which has the largest single waterfall in the northeast (about 200 ft)--but for my money i'd go with treman--it's really an area of incredible natural beauty. so pretty is it that other parts of the united states seemed really ugly to me until i realized how unique ithaca's beauty was.

if you're more into music, there are two places that i'd recommend. one is the haunt, a club downtown that, last i heard, offers lots of ska and reggae (i played there in a band myself quite often in high school, and had the pleasure of opening for the likes of toots and the maytals and what's left of the wailers, as well as the toasters and mephiskapheles).

if country, blues, or roots rock is more your bag, i'd check out the rongovian embassy in trumansburg, ny, just a stone's throw up the road. the rongo is a legendary sort of place to those who know it. organized as a commune in the 60s, it retains much of that spirit. i have never been disappointed by the tunes there, but i highlight for me is wednesday night's old-time session with richie stearns, arguably the best clawhammer banjo player alive.

for eating, i recommend the moosewood restaurant (yes, the folks who wrote the cookbooks), which is downtown. lunch is the best meal to eat there because it's quite good and considerably cheaper than their dinners. you can also eat at billy bob jack's barbecue shack, or for a fancy sort of meal, madeleine's downtown or the taughannock farms, an old inn up the lake.

there's also the hangar theatre, a summer theater that usually puts on a good show (i worked there for a summer and saw excellent productions of six degrees of separation, damn yankees, and falsettoes). and there's whatever happens to be going on at cornell university: concerts, lectures, sports, whatever.

any other questions?

Wow! Now I have to make a visit. I know about the Moosewood restaurant & have their cookbooks, but someone once told me that the chow at the restaurant wasn't that impressive. I'd like to try it myself anyway one day soon. The one time I was in Ithaca I was with Mom (we were attending a family wedding in New Woodstock) and we basically just walked around the Cornell campus, drove around outside of town & dropped in on used bookstores. We went to Lake Cayuga too, I think.