In early September, we traveled to the Finger Lakes for the first time.   We used VRBO to find a vacation rental that would suit us.  We chose to stay in a one bedroom cottage on Seneca Lake.  For this trip, it was important to us to escape and relax and also to be able to have Puddy with us too.  The cottage was in a great location along the lake.  Our view was amazing.

We really got to enjoy the view a lot from the back porch.  It rained the one evening, and we just sat on the porch and watched it rain.

Sunset from the porch was pretty too.

Puddy didn’t hesitate to make himself comfortable.  He had his own chair on the porch.

The cottage had been remodeled; they had a little photo album inside that showed the before and after pictures.  I loved that they made it really fit into the area.  It had a rustic look, but was very well done.

The wine barrel kitchen cabinets were so unique.

I know most people go to the Finger Lakes for all of the wineries, but that was not us!  This trip was about escaping the pace of our lives, relaxing and enjoying the time together.  Even though we went in early September, it was quite warm on the one day.  We sat in the sun and got to spend a little time in the lake too.  Puddy is used to being near water with us, but he is typically scared by ocean waves, so we were anxious to see how he did at the lake.  He was still a bit scared, but he finally walked in the water.

We got him to swim very briefly, but he really just prefers to stay on land.  The walk to and from the lake from the cottage was up a pretty steep hill, but there were steps carved into the landscape to make it easier to get up and down.

We explored some of the towns nearby, traveling to Geneva, Dundee (for the Scottish festival), and Watkins Glen.  Puddy tagged along with us everywhere except for when we went to Geneva.

So many places were dog friendly, it made it easy to travel with Puddy.  In Watkins Glen, there was outdoor seating at a café that we took advantage of.  In Dundee, there were booths at the festival that had dog treats too…Puddy was loving it, even though we were getting rained on for part of our time that day.  The one evening Puddy even got to go to dinner with us.  Hazlitt’s Winery had an outdoor bar/pavilion with live music and a little food truck.  We picked a seat under this pretty tree.

We had some good food and enjoyed the pretty evening.  As much as I hesitated to take Puddy to dinner with us, he really just made himself comfortable and hung out with us.

While we didn’t do any wine tours, we still enjoyed the vineyard views.  The road to our cottage was through one of the vineyards, so we stopped to take some close-ups.

Another place we found and enjoyed was Two Goats Brewery.  It was a fun little place that we went to twice.  They had a huge deck overlooking the vineyards and lake.

On our last night, we got some great sunset shots (from our iPhones) from Two Goats.

Even on our way home, we stopped for the scenery to take pictures.  This waterfall was right along the road.

As we got back into Pennsylvania, we traveled through Williamsport.  Bob is a big baseball fan, so we made a quick stop to the Little League World Series Field.  This was shortly after the series had ended this year.

Overall, our trip to the Finger Lakes was a great long weekend.  It was a good experience for us to take Puddy somewhere different, but it was definitely hard to leave him alone in the cottage for the few times that we did.

Have you been to the Finger Lakes?  Do you travel with your dog (or other pets)?