Inaugural Ride: Seneca Lake

Six days into my EV ownership journey I decided to take a trip around Seneca Lake.

Seneca Lake has been a part of the fabric of my family since before I was born. My grandfather purchased land on it in the 1930s, and built a small boathouse to dry dock his sailboat. That was later expanded to include a bedroom and a kitchen, turning the rustic little structure into a bona fide summer home for he and my grandmother.

In 2000 the building we’d called ‘the cottage’ all our lives, now around 60 years old, burned to the ground in an electrical fire. It would later be replaced by a house up on the cliff - Seneca Lake, as one of the 11 glacially-formed Finger Lakes, is known for them. In the years since the new house has served as a home, or summer home, for all of us.

When I turned 16, the first solo ‘big trip’ I took was in my 1983 Ford Escort - also a hand-me-down from my grandfather. He called the car his ‘buttercup’ - it was bright yellow, with rust spots touched up with various shades of yellow touch-up or spray paint. It was the last remnants of his independence, and the first symbol of mine.

My first time ‘leaving home’ was an overnight trip to the cottage, and I loved every minute of it. The cottage became my home base in college, and the war room for planning rides to new places I’d never been. I loved that feeling! Ever since, something about driving out into the Finger Lakes and just going for long, slow drives along the lakes, has refueled me.

That first car was my ticket to freedom, and many of the vehicles I had since served as the same. Freedom, for me, meant discovering places like the little hamlet of Dresden - home of the Naval Sea Systems Command and the Seneca Lake Sonar Testing Facility. (It’s a big barge out in the middle of the lake, floating at about 600 feet of depth, and how they get it to stay in that spot has always fascinated me). Or the time that friends and I crested a hill along the east side of the lake and saw lights on the horizon we’d soon discover were lighting up the Village of Watkins Glen - we were stunned that civilization existed so far down the lake, I think, and probably felt like Amerigo Vespucci as he floated up to the shores of this land so long ago.

(This was in the days before widespread internet and GPS use - it would be difficult to not know what was coming up on your route these days, and I kind of miss that feeling of being lost and finding your way).

My trips around the lake had slowed in recent years, due in part to my feeling a need to keep the miles off the Prius, which I figured would be my last car - I needed to make her last, right? Long, slow drives to nowhere left me with pangs of guilt, now. Do I really need to drive 37 miles to Watkins Glen just to see the lake from a different angle?

I’d probably made fewer than a half dozen circumnavigations of the lake in the past 12 months.

Before I drove any real distance in any other direction, though, I knew I had to begin with one symbolic trip around this lake that I love so much in the new car…

The trip down the west shore was relatively uneventful, in part because I’d decided to combine the trip with a grocery pickup in Watkins Glen - something of a guilt-free excuse to go, I guess - and I was running a bit late. I stopped in Dresden and took some pictures by the water, with the aforementioned barge in the background, but they turned out to be trash. Then, for the rest of the trip, I zipped along toward Watkins, 45 miles south.

This car is a head-turner, and turn some heads it did. At one point a New York State Trooper turned around and followed me for a little bit of a distance - not sure if he had seen the temporary registration sticker and wanted to call in the plate, or if he was hoping to snag a speeder. (Sir, I drove a Prius for 13 years before this… speeding isn’t in my vocabulary). Others, doing yard work or standing outside talking to neighbors in this amazing weather, stopped what they were doing to turn and watch the car drive by.

After getting groceries, and some compliments from the kid who loaded them into the trunk, I headed back up the other side of the lake. I’d planned to stop at two waterfront vistas for some car pics but skipped them due to mud left over from snow melt. I’d probably made it around 2/3 of the lake before I found a spot that was truly photo worthy. That spot was Hector Falls, one of the highest waterfalls in New York State, and it was flowing, the result of the snow melt I mentioned. I parked on the bridge, right in between the signs that order no stopping on the bridge, and rushed to get a video with the water gushing in the background.

My next stop was Sampson State Park. A former naval base and Air Force base during World War II, it has been a place for camping, boating, and swimming since before I was born. And, for me and my friends, a place for car photos. I brought my 1992 Mustang here, and my 25th anniversary edition Mustang convertible, and my 1996 Mustang, and took photos of each at some point during my formative years.

Then I grew up, and began buying cars that were the responsible choice. Nobody takes a picture of a Kia Rio - or a Prius.

This new car made me want to take pictures of my car again, for the first time since shortly after I graduated college.

I’d forgotten what it feels like, having a car that you love, a car that you care about, a car that you want to show off. It feels amazing! My last go-round with a car I was proud of was before the days of social media - I couldn’t Instagram, or Facebook, or TikTok any of my Mustangs.

With this new car, all of those would be in play… and I’d soon find I’d be joining a very crowded field of other Tesla drivers proud as fuck of their rides.

So I scrolled through my library on Apple Music - something that didn’t even exist during my last shoot here - and found November Rain. That CD had fueled many of my road trips in the past, and I’d played that song on repeat in a few of those photo-worthy cars. Hearing it now gave me chills, and really brought back the nostalgia. I turned it up - the Model 3 has a decent sound system for a family-type sedan - and took pictures of the car from all angles.

Very briefly I felt like a car-crazy college kid again, instead of a middle-aged man with stage IV neuroendocrine cancer. It was a really good feeling.

I should note that, despite my and many others’ enthusiasm for this type of photography, there will surely be those who view this as nothing more as an exercise in boastfulness. A “flex”, as the kids call it on TikTok. Chris is just flexing his Elonmobile again, people may say. I’m okay with that. I love photography - I eagerly await the release of the newest iPhone every year, and focus on those camera upgrades during the Apple keynotes. And while I do love taking pictures of scenery - you can see some of my favorite Seneca Lake shots here - for me, my best photos are taken when I have a muse.

My boat, a 1977 Trojan Tri-Cabin, has its own website - I may be one of very few people taking shot after shot after shot of a 1970s-era cabin cruiser.

And my puppy - also Trojan - has a website, as well.

The moment a friend heard I had been gifted a Tesla he asked the question that has probably been on the minds of everyone who knows me: “Does your car have a website, yet?”

I laughed, at the time - but then I took this trip around the lake, and snapped some photos. This car was made to be photographed - and I would most definitely be posting the photos. So, to spare my friends the agony of scrolling through a wall of Tesla pics on their Facebook feeds, I present to you: StageIVTesla.com.

If you get tired of seeing the same Tesla Model 3 photographed over and over, take a moment and check out Trojanyacht.com for photos of the boat. Or Trojanyacht.com/pup for photos of the puppy. I’m passionate about each of these things, as well, and I thank you for letting me share that passion with you.