Onondaga County reopens Jamesville Beach and Oneida Shores at 11 a.m. Saturday after a seven-month winter, Green Lakes in Fayetteville flips its swimming season on the same morning, and AAA expects 39.1 million Americans to drive 50 miles or more between Thursday and Monday. Here is what is actually open, what closes, and where 6,500 flags sit in DeWitt.
Truth-check: Frank Mahoney, Editor-in-Chief.
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Standing in the parking lot at Apulia Road Friday afternoon, you could already see the rope buoys lined up on the sand at Jamesville Beach Park, waiting for a county lifeguard to walk them out into the Jamesville Reservoir. By 11 a.m. Saturday May 23, 2026, those buoys mark a swimming area that has been closed since Labor Day weekend last year. Onondaga County Parks will open both Jamesville Beach in Jamesville and Oneida Shores Park in Brewerton from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Memorial Day Monday.
That three-day window is the unofficial start of summer in Central New York. It is also the most-traveled Memorial Day weekend in American history. AAA projects 45 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home between Thursday May 21 and Monday May 25, with 39.1 million driving, accounting for 87% of all holiday travelers. INRIX, the traffic analytics firm AAA contracts, expects the heaviest congestion Thursday and Friday between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., and again Monday afternoon. Sunday is the lightest travel day of the weekend.
Across Onondaga, Madison, Cayuga and Oswego counties, that means three days of full parking lots at every lake access point from the Salt Museum in Liverpool to Glen Haven at the south end of Skaneateles Lake. Here is what is open, what closes, and where to go.
Two county beaches open Saturday at 11 a.m., weekend only
Onondaga County Parks runs exactly two public swimming beaches, and both reopen Saturday May 23 with the same hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Memorial Day Monday. After Monday the beaches close again until June 15, when full daily operations begin and run through August 18.
Jamesville Beach Park sits on Apulia Road in Jamesville on the Jamesville Reservoir. The park hosts the Balloonfest each June. Oneida Shores Park sits on Bartel Road in Brewerton, on the southern shore of Oneida Lake. Both parks charge $7 per vehicle daily, with season passes at $50 for county residents, $100 for non-residents and $21 for seniors 62 and over. The Oneida Shores boat launch is already operating at $10 per launch or $100 for a seasonal trailer pass.
Both beaches will have lifeguards on the sand for the first time since September. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation said in February it was trying to fill roughly 1,100 lifeguard positions at 80 state park beaches and pools for 2026. Onondaga County says both county beaches will be fully staffed for the holiday weekend.
Green Lakes opens swimming Saturday in Fayetteville, and parking now costs $10
New York State Parks opens the swimming season at Green Lakes State Park at 7900 Green Lakes Road in Fayetteville at 11 a.m. Saturday May 23, with daily swim hours of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Labor Day September 7. The park itself is open year-round dawn to dusk, but starting Memorial Day weekend a $10 per vehicle day-use fee applies from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. The fee runs through Labor Day.
Green Lakes draws its name from two glacial lakes, Round Lake and Green Lake, that are meromictic, meaning the surface and bottom waters never mix between seasons. Round Lake is one of the few National Natural Landmarks in Central New York. The park has a sand beach, paddle boat and rowboat rentals (available Memorial Day weekend through Columbus Day, weather permitting), and a campground that opened May 15 and runs through October 11.
Green Lakes operates an unusual schedule for its Visitor Center and concessions: open Wednesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Mondays and Tuesdays, with one exception. Memorial Day Monday the park staffs up for the holiday crowd. Park phone: (315) 637-6111.
6,500 flags in DeWitt: the cemetery placement and Wednesday ceremony
The Onondaga County Veterans Memorial Cemetery at 4069 Howlett Hill Road, on the line between Marcellus and Onondaga in southwestern Onondaga County, will look different this weekend. Volunteers have placed more than 6,500 American flags on the graves of veterans buried there, one per headstone. The flags went in Friday and remain through Memorial Day, a national “Flags In” tradition that traces back to 1948.
The annual county ceremony was held Wednesday May 20 at the cemetery, with Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon as a featured speaker. The cemetery is open to the public during daylight hours. It was designed by Syracuse-based Environmental Design and Research and opened to serve veterans, spouses and dependent children from the eight-county Central New York region.
In May 2019 the Onondaga County Legislature passed Law 01-2019, which eliminated the $500 burial fee for eligible veterans, spouses and dependent children at the county cemetery. Eligibility is processed through the county Department of Veterans Service Agency at 421 Montgomery Street in Syracuse.
Skaneateles puts 8 a.m. ceremony, parade and military flyover on Memorial Day Monday
Skaneateles American Legion Post 239, founded in 1923, has been running the village’s Memorial Day program for more than a century. The 2026 program begins at 8 a.m. Monday at the American Legion Post at 8913 Jordan Road, with ceremonies commencing at 10:10 a.m. The route walks from the Post through St. Mary’s Cemetery on West Genesee Street for a dedication, then north through the village to Lakeview Cemetery, and finishes at Shotwell Park at the north end of Skaneateles Lake.
The keynote speaker at Shotwell Park is Naval LCDR (Ret.) Laurie N. Coffey of Corning, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and military aviator. The closing ceremony at Shotwell Park ends with a flyover of two military aircraft over Skaneateles Lake.
The village now charges for parking on Genesee Street in season, and the public pier at Clift Park is open dawn to dusk. The Sailboat Shop on West Genesee Street rents kayaks and paddleboards. The Mandana municipal launch on West Lake Road, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation launch on East Lake Road are both open for boat launches Memorial Day weekend.
Cazenovia and Auburn: Lakeland Park stays pre-season, Emerson opens water access
Two of the other big public lakefronts in the region are in transition this weekend. The Village of Cazenovia’s Lakeland Park, on the east shore of Cazenovia Lake at the foot of Albany Street, is open this weekend for shoreline access, fishing, picnicking and use of the pier and canoe launch. Lifeguarded swimming, however, does not begin until later in June; the village last summer opened guarded swim hours on June 18 with hours of noon to 6 p.m. that first week. Full summer waterfront hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sundays, posted on village signage daily.
In Cayuga County, Emerson Park in the town of Owasco, at the northern tip of Owasco Lake, is open daily for the weekend. Emerson covers 135 acres with one mile of lakefront and two miles of river frontage on the Owasco Outlet. The park’s boat launch reopened in late April after winter maintenance. The county has applied to the state Department of Environmental Conservation to dredge approximately 12,000 square feet of the Owasco Outlet and 1,000 square feet of the lake to improve navigability, work that will not happen this season. The county has also signed off on a Friends of Emerson Park playground project on Deauville Island, with the group targeting summer 2026 completion of a $3 million accessible play structure.
Emerson Park is free for shoreline use. The Pavilion at Emerson Park, a 1914 ballroom that hosted Tommy Dorsey and Duke Ellington in its heyday, hosts the Auburn Public Theatre’s summer concert series starting in June.
1 million-visitor park, 7.5 miles of trail: Onondaga Lake Park stays open dawn to sunset
Onondaga Lake Park in Liverpool, the largest park in the county system at 7.5 miles of linear greenway and more than one million visitors a year, will be open dawn to sunset all three days of the weekend at no charge. The park’s two paved paths give bikers, runners and dog walkers a contiguous 7-mile loop: the West Shore Trail runs 4.5 miles from the Liverpool Marina to the Salt Museum, and the East Shore Recreation Trail runs 2.5 miles between Murphy’s Island and the Inner Harbor.
The park’s Visitor Center at 106 Lake Drive in Liverpool is open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, April 1 through October 31. The Salt Museum opens for the season this weekend, with limited hours Saturday and Sunday. Heid’s of Liverpool, the 1917 hot-dog stand at the foot of Tulip Street that anchors the park’s southwest entrance, is open daily.
The park has no public swimming, but it hosts the Liverpool Festival of Races every fall. For Memorial Day weekend, park managers expect overflow parking at the Long Branch Park lot in Geddes.
The drive: 39 million cars, Thursday-Friday afternoons the worst, Sunday the best
The New York State Thruway Authority and Region 3 of the New York State Department of Transportation suspend most non-emergency construction lane closures for the holiday weekend, but the real problem is volume. AAA projects 39.1 million Americans driving 50 miles or more between Thursday and Monday, a record. Traffic analytics firm INRIX, which provides AAA its travel-time data, predicts the worst congestion windows are Thursday and Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Monday in the afternoon. Sunday is the lightest day of the weekend.
Specifically for Central New York drivers: peak congestion is forecast on the Thruway between Albany and the New York City area, with AAA predicting it could take up to 64% longer to drive during peak times. Returning travelers on the Thruway should leave before 10 a.m. Memorial Day Monday to avoid the afternoon buildup. Real-time traffic is at 511NY.org, by dialing 511, or via the 511NY app.
Gas prices are the highest at a Memorial Day holiday since summer 2022, AAA notes, though that has not dented driving demand. Domestic airfare is roughly 6% cheaper than last year, the agency said.
Wegmans open, pharmacies short, hardware open: holiday hours at a glance
Memorial Day Monday is a federal holiday, but most Central New York grocery and retail stays open. Wegmans stores will operate normal 6 a.m. to midnight hours Memorial Day Monday May 25, 2026, though store pharmacies close early at 1 p.m. and operate from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wegmans has 18 stores in Central New York, including the flagship at DeWitt Pyramid Mall, Liverpool John Glenn Boulevard, and Cicero Brewerton Road.
U.S. Postal Service mail and federal offices are closed Memorial Day. Trash and recycling pickup in Camillus, Manlius, Salina, DeWitt and Clay slides back one day for the rest of the week, per OCRRA and town schedules. Centro buses run a Sunday/holiday schedule on Monday. State courts and county offices in Onondaga, Madison, Cayuga and Oswego counties are closed Monday.
Beer and wine retailers are open Monday under New York’s standard Sunday and holiday liquor-sale rules. Several local bars host a “service members eat free” promotion. Among CNY breweries with public taprooms, Middle Ages Brewing Company at 120 Wilkinson Street in Syracuse posts its hours and live-music calendar on middleagesbrewing.com.
If you only do four things this weekend
If you only have a few hours of Memorial Day, here is a tight loop that anchors the weekend across four suburbs outside Syracuse city:
- Saturday 11 a.m.: Drive to Jamesville Beach Park on Apulia Road in Jamesville for the season opener. $7 per car, lifeguards on the sand, swim until 6 p.m.
- Saturday or Sunday afternoon: Walk the East Shore Recreation Trail of Onondaga Lake Park from Liverpool, starting at the Salt Museum. Free; 2.5 miles each way; ends at the Inner Harbor.
- Sunday morning: Drive to Cazenovia. Walk the boardwalk and pier at Lakeland Park on the foot of Albany Street, then breakfast in the village.
- Monday 8 a.m.: The Skaneateles American Legion Post 239 ceremony begins at the Post at 8913 Jordan Road, with formal ceremonies at 10:10 a.m., parade through the village, and military flyover at Shotwell Park.
To skip crowds: the Erie Canalway Trail in Camillus, the Old Erie Canal State Historic Park between DeWitt and Canastota, and the Maple Bay area on Oneida Lake in Cleveland (Oswego County) all see far less holiday traffic.
What the weekend actually means
Memorial Day is a federal holiday set by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 on the last Monday of May, observed to honor Americans who died in military service. The 6,500 flags at the cemetery in DeWitt, the Skaneateles flyover, the wreaths at Lakeview Cemetery and the Wednesday morning service at the Onondaga County Veterans Memorial Cemetery are all about that. The beaches, the boat launches and the AAA traffic record are the secondary story, the unofficial start of summer, what residents do because the calendar finally allows it.
For real-time updates on county park closures, swim cancellations or weather changes this weekend, the Onondaga County Parks main line is (315) 451-7275. State Parks at (315) 637-6111 covers Green Lakes. Cayuga County Parks at (315) 253-5611 handles Emerson Park. The New York State Department of Transportation Region 3 traveler-advisory page is at dot.ny.gov.
Reporting from: Liverpool, Jamesville, Brewerton, Fayetteville, Cazenovia, Skaneateles, Auburn/Owasco, DeWitt.
