SPRING TAUGHANNOCK CREEK

Too often the destination becomes the journey and the between becomes a blur. A good discipline would be to start each trip a little early and set aside time for the “next time I’ll stop”s. When ever I vow to stop and do rewards exceed the effort. The journey is not longer only better.
For many years I’ve driven over the bridge via Rte 96 near the village of Trumansburg, NY that crosses Taughannock Creek. From the bridge is glimpsed a lovely, small waterfalls, just glimpsed because there are always places to go!! But I always look to see what I may see, I never miss the glimpse.


Occasionally if the journey is short I’ll stop to take a photograph knowing “a picture-perfect” image may be found. But each time I’m never satisfied, until one morning late spring on a June day this year. In the early morning light all came together, me with camera and spring and morning light and time to stop and look!
Walking across the bridge, to the left, the creek flows away, a shallow stream wandering with no haste, to the great gorge and falls of Taughannock. On the other side of the bridge, looking upstream, a small, quiet cascade forms and this morning is seen in picture-perfect light. The sun is slightly dimmed by morning haze formed overnight above Cayuga Lake, yet overhead, deep blue sky. Perfect!! The shadows cast aren’t as dark, the sun lit brights are not as “hot”. The blue sky glows the water bright.


Traffic roars over the bridge, pounding expansion joints to deafening extremes. But every once in a while a quiet as breaks occur in traffic flow, then, for a brief moment all is good. Soon the light changes as higher goes the sun. the magic glow is gone. The scene becomes daytime pedestrian.
I again cross the road and gaze at the stream below, watch the water flow, this time from my right as I walk. I take another picture and head on my way. After I look at my pictures at home I notice the “handedness” of view. The point-of-view is quite different. One has a left-to-right diagonal view, the other just the opposite. Yet, as I took the photos I was standing straight, looking directly down stream. The initial point-of-view was retained.
















After getting back to the car, I continued down stream. From a pastoral, quiet calm, the creek soon plunges down a narrow chute and within a few feet opens into a deep gorge, gouged out of relatively soft shale rock. And soon another plunge, Taughannock Falls, gouging out an even deeper gorge as the creek races to Cayuga Lake.