I currently live pretty centrally in the Finger Lakes region of NY state. Centered between Seneca and Canandaigua Lakes, 20 minutes from Canandaigua Geneva and Penn Yan, an hour from Ithaca, Rochester, Syracuse, and just a little over an hour from Lake Ontario where my hubby occationally fishes.
My hubby is a physics/earth science/chemistry teacher. As for the education system here in NYS, in my oppinion, is overrated. The 4th grade math tests are coming up soon and all the teachers have time for is to get ready for these tests that tell us NOTHING! If the state would just butt out and let the teachers do what they are trained to do and trust our teachers, our students would be much better off. As you can see, I'm not very happy with our state standards and our education system. We are raising the not so independent learners (unlike what you hear about in NH) by spoon feeding them all the way through highschool. My hubby is extremely frustrated and has recently begun thinking about a career change toward environmental engineering because of the frustrations of being a good teacher and the administration wants him to give out grades to students who don't earn them. We are now faced with purely looking good on paper to the government. Either that or he'll stick with teaching after our move to No. NH. It's not just our school either, he has 2 brothers in different districts that also teach in the sciences and complain of similar problems.
The other thing I'm not use to is the unfriendliness of the area when you are just walking down the sidewalk. Especially after living in Lake Placid for a number of years. I just love it up there!! The people here don't really live for the outdoors. Even in the summer months if you look up our street, it's very quiet. Yesterday I was out in a t'shirt raking leaves and doing yard work (54 degrees in the warmth of the sun sure felt like 70) we had a camp fire in our back yard in the evening and the stillness from the neighborhood made us think we were living in a ghost town.
What I LOVE ... Ithaca is amazing ... if you ever make it up here to visit, the commons are loads of excitment and they have a way of bringing EVERYBODY to the streets, the waterfalls are georgous, farm fresh food all summer long ... and yes, farms are everywhere for that elbow space you were mentioning. There are a number of family size ski resorts in the region. Plenty of hiking opportunities and there are road biking groups that I see out and about. Canandaigua has free live music every Friday during the summer at the gazeebo and a couple art festivals also. Very pretty area with lots to do generally during the summer months.
It really is quite a nice region but it isn't our cup of tea so to say, which is why we are moving toward the Northern NH area in the next 6 months or so.
Good luck!
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