Be a Tourist in Your Own City
Happy August!
Normally, these are the dog days of summer. Or, it’s a time to go spend many hours in a car or plane to enjoy the wonders of a new place. LOTS of you reading this are already starting the fall sports chaos.
Given my subject line, you can probably guess where I’m going with this.
Onanda Park, Canandaigua
In this email, I’ll cover a few things:
Why we ignore so much of our every day surroundings
How to change that
Where to go in the Rochester region and be a tourist in your own city
Keep reading - I promise it’s worth it..and I hope it helps you make the absolute most out of these last few weeks of summer. (And fall, too!)
Be sure to save this email for when you need some ideas.
The Curse of Familiarity
Yesterday, a bunch of my family piled into cars and drove to Canandaigua.
About 30-45 minutes for most of us.
We walked through the woods and found waterfalls, walked Main Street to shop for toys and treats. Sat by the water, ate popsicles on a dock. Had dinner on the lake, with a view you’d normally expect while on that far-off vacation. We were all sweaty and tired by the end of the day, as it should be.
The Rochester and Finger Lakes region really is GORGEOUS. But most of us spend way too much time in our routines to notice how special it is.
__________________
Researcher Daniel Pink posted something on Instagram last week that I've been thinking about ever since.
His observation was about the World Cup. All summer, visiting fans were filming themselves marveling at ordinary American things — free refills, ice water arriving unrequested, ranch dressing! Air conditioning! The ridiculous scale of a drugstore. He mentions one German road-tripper who described Taco Bell in religious terms. And every time, Pink notes, the American reaction was bewilderment. It was news to us that these things were remarkable. This phenomenon is called habituation.
Pink talks about research by neuroscientist Tali Sharot, who wrote a book with Cass Sunstein called Look Again. The finding is simple: your brain stops responding to whatever stays constant. It's an efficiency feature. Constant input carries no new information, so your attention wanders off toward something that might.
The catch is that it doesn't discriminate. It fades the annoying things in your life, which is good. It also fades the great ones, which is not good.
Pink's summary is: "The longer something is yours, the harder it is to see."
The fix: break the constancy
Change something. It doesn't have to be big. Small change works. Sharot's research suggests even imagined change works — it re-sensitizes you.
Here are some ideas to re-introduce yourself to your own backyard:
Change the route. Drive home a different way one day this week. What do you notice? Any cool gardens? How does the light hit the trees? Corn fields? What would you notice if you were seeing this in Europe and not upstate NY?
Do the thing you'd send a visitor to do. Make a list of what you'd tell an out-of-town friend to see, then notice how many of them you haven't done in five years. Then go do one.
Borrow someone else's eyes. Bring a friend who's new to the area, or a relative visiting from out of town. Take what delights them seriously instead of explaining why it's not a big deal. Huge bonus if you have a friend who loves to LIKE things. (Not as fun with someone who is determined not to be impressed with anything you show them. We all know that person.)
Give the day a mission. "Find the best donut in Monroe County" is a better plan than "go somewhere nice." A dumb, specific quest turns an errand into an outing.
Take pictures like a tourist. Tourists photograph everything because they know they're leaving. It’s also a pattern interrupt from their every day, which makes them see things differently. But it’s more a mindset shift than anything else. You can choose to do that anytime you want, really.
Give your pictures a mission. Every year, I make a huge family calendar for my parents. In truth, it looms over me all year - but that’s a good thing because every time we do something together, I think “This is a memory!!” And I put on my ‘calendar glasses’ - it turns a normal trip to the park into a goal to capture a great picture worthy of being hung on a wall. So, maybe you don’t make a calendar, but maybe you like to occasionally scroll through the camera roll of your phone - so the goal can be that when you happen upon this in the future, you have a picture that perfectly reminds you of that day.
Make it a day, not a stop. Leave the house. Eat somewhere. Come home later than you meant to. Half of what made Canandaigua feel like vacation was simply that we didn't go home in between things.
Where to actually go
Everything on this list is inside an hour of Rochester. Most are inside thirty minutes.
Places you've driven past for years
Mount Hope Cemetery. Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass are both buried here, in what's essentially a Victorian landscape park. Strange, beautiful, free, and almost empty on a weekday morning.
The Susan B. Anthony Museum & House. Actual house. Actual rooms where it happened. Fifteen minutes from downtown.
Memorial Art Gallery. Small enough to see properly in ninety minutes, which is exactly the right size for a museum trip with a teenager. And don’t forget to stroll through the grounds. It’s so pretty (and has cool art, too!)
Water and walking
High Falls and the Pont de Rennes bridge. I sometimes forget that there is a ninety-six-foot waterfall in the middle of our city. Start off at Genny Brew House and walk off the beer by walking across the bridge :) The Pont de Rennes was closed for a while to fix it up but is now open!
Ontario Beach Park, Charlotte. Pier, lighthouse, carousel, beach volleyball. Go on a weekday morning and it feels like another world.
Mendon Ponds Park. Enormous. You have probably been to one small corner of it. I like Hundred Acre Pond, Round Pond and Deep Pond.
Onanda State Park in Canandaigua. $5 entry fee is well worth it. Lifeguarded beach area, wide open lake views, a cute Outpost selling popsicles and ice cream. Across the street (away from the lake), you’ll find hiking trails that lead to waterfalls. And the drive through farm country roads is as pretty as you can get.
Kershaw Park - Much closer to the Canandaigua action, Kershaw Park is a family favorite; it has sandy beach access, lots of trees, a fun playground and a spot to rent kayaks is right there. TONS of restaurant options within a 5 minute walk, so once you find a parking spot, you can keep it :)
Canal towns
Schoen Place, Pittsford. Boats, ice cream, canal path. Deeply pleasant and slightly absurd that it's right there.
Fairport. The lift bridge, the village, the ice cream, the train pavilion (my youngest son’s favorite place). And it feels like a new amazing restaurant or cafe opens up here every week.
Misc.
Town Concerts. I think you can find at least one free concert night in almost every town in Monroe County in the summer. From the East Rochester Wednesday concert series, to Center Park West, to Charlotte Beach concerts on the water, there is something for everyone.
Farmer’s Markets that can’t be beat. As I write this (August), the offerings at our local farmer’s markets are hitting their peak. Again, most towns have a market of some type at least one day a week.
Family-friendly outdoor concert venues. Backwoods is a new spot in Perinton that keeps getting recommended, 20 Deep Winery is a super welcoming spot that often has live music, and Lincoln Hill Farms has tons of space for the kids to run around while you listen to music, have a drink and eat some BBQ.
On a rainy day, find an independent coffee shop and bring a good book. We are spoiled for options. On vacation as a kid, I have great memories of small cafes and bakeries in the little towns we’d visit during rainy days.
This is just a starter list. I know I’m not even scratching the surface, but hopefully this gets you thinking of our region in a fresh way.
Oh, and I think I’ll try my local Taco Bell again - foreign tourists have convinced me to give it another go!
Enjoy the rest of your summer - and if you’d like a fresh pair of eyes to help capture your family this summer or fall, I’d love to be that person.
-erin
