Two Siamese cats (Naomi and Pandora) have been with us since the start of our RV travels (and actually pre-date our relationship/marriage). They were adopted in 1998 and were somewhat feral as they were 6 months old before they were adopted. Pandora succumbed to kidney and respiratory complications a few years back. However, an end to an era happened on July 24, 2019 as Naomi displayed full blown dementia and paced around the RV like she had no idea where she was. Given that and the fact the poor thing couldn’t “hit” the litter box consistently, we decided it was time she went to be with her sister. She was 21.5 years old (birth date 12/25/1997). Her siblings (Mercury, Kirby and Phoebe) are adjusting to life without her but we still miss her as Naomi was certainly a very special little lady. In her prime, as indicated by the photo below, she was her Daddy’s co-pilot as she would lay on the dash as we traveled down the road.
Today we completed our migration to my hometown. We dropped off of I-90 just west of Cleveland (where the tolls start) and picked up Ohio SR-2 (which is limited access until after Sandusky, OH). In Toledo we took I-280 to I-75 South to I-475 to US-20. US-20 was good road other than the fact that it was closed for construction in two spots requiring detours (one in Ohio and the other in Indiana just west of Angola). The trip took about six hours.
We pulled into the paved parking lot next door to Mom and Dad’s house (wider driveway) and Dad met us there. We were shocked to see Mom appear a few minutes later with her wheeled walker sporting her new replacement hip. While we disconnected the Tahoe from the RV, Mom did laps in the parking lot around us to get her therapy exercise in (which totally cracked me up). Once we unhooked, we drove the RV across the yard and hooked up to Dad’s 50 Amp RV outlet (Glamping in the backyard rocks!). Shortly after we got parked my sister and brother-in-law arrived and we ordered pizza for dinner.
Since we are going to be here for nearly a month, we decided to follow Beth’s sister Kathy’s example and build a small cat habitat so the kitties can get out of the camper once in a while. On Monday we headed back to Angola for our first ever visit to a Menards. This is a wonderful store that I should never be allowed to enter alone with a credit card in hand. Even though our plastic fence and 6 plastic stakes cost roughly $15 our bill at checkout had somehow climbed to over $90. When we got home we were able to quickly assemble the habitat against the back of Dad’s garage and throw some cats in (I like to keep Beth in it too in order to prevent her from wondering off). While inside the habitat, Mercury discovered that he likes to roll around on Dad’s cinder blocks.
Today we left the state of New York and migrated further west. We left The Ridge Campground, headed south and picked up I-86 West until we hit I-90 near Erie, PA. The only campground we could find with Saturday night availability was just across the state line in Ohio. We are staying at Evergreen Lake Park campground. There are a lot of permanent campers here, but all the sites are clean and well kept although I do feel like a bit of an outsider not having my golf car here (lots of carts going by). Once again, in order to have full hookups (so we can dump our tanks), we had to take a 30 Amp site. Today was the hottest day of the summer so far for a good share of the country, but fortunately this site is well shaded and the camper cooled down quickly once we parked and closed up all of the curtains. On another positive note, I was able to program R2D2 (our portable satellite antenna) to access the Dish Western Arc and find a spot on our site to place it and access two of the three satellites. Fortunately one of them is the satellite with Fox Sports Sun so that we could watch the Rays vs White Sox game. Tomorrow we will head on into my hometown (LaGrange, IN).
Today we visited Letchworth State Park which is also referred to as the Grand Canyon of the East. Much like the Grand Canyon, pictures certainly don’t do it justice. You really need to see it to understand how huge the gorge along the Genesee River really is. We highly recommend visiting here.
There are three sets of waterfalls within the state park (Upper, Middle, and Lower). Although you can drive to parking lots that are fairly close to each of the falls, we were trying to get in shape for hiking out West. Having had no changes in elevation to practice on in Florida we elected to hike from Inspiration Point (North of the Middle Falls) to the top of the Upper Falls at the South end of the park. This 2.8 mile hike was definitely good practice. We climbed down 91 steps (and back up on the return) from Inspiration Point to the Middle Falls and then up 262 steps (and back down on the return) to the top of the Gorge Trail above the Upper Falls. Beth had packed sandwiches and we stopped near the top of the Upper Falls and ate lunch on a rock cutout. We were famished and the sandwiches were delicious. Needless to say, the hike “whooped us” and when we returned to Inspiration Point, we didn’t have the energy to hike to the Lower Falls. We’ll see them next time.
We followed the park road out to the North entrance (we had entered via the South entrance) and stopped at numerous overlooks along the way. This is a must see State Park and we enjoyed every bit of it.
The Gorge
Beth at the Middle Falls
Beth on the Stairs to the Middle Falls
The Upper Falls
Inspiration Point – Overlooking the Middle and Upper Falls
Having groan up with my childhood bedroom literally feet from US-20 (Mom & Dad’s bedroom is even closer) I wanted to travel across US-20 from Albany to our campsite at The Ridge Campground near Letchworth State Park just west of the Finger Lakes. This not only provided us with great scenery as we traversed across the state of New York, but it also avoided the heavy tolls required to use I-90. So today we left Beth’s sister Kathy’s house in East Greenbush, NY (suburb across the river from Albany) and took I-90 west until the US-20 exit just prior to the toll booths.
Although it rained a good portion of the trip, the scenery was great and we got to see a lot of beautiful homes as we passed through the towns that bordered each of the Finger Lakes. US-20 traverses some fairly serious hills as it crosses the state prior to the Finger Lakes. There were several occasions where I had to downshift the RV clear to second gear just to maintain 25 to 30 MPH. That was a first and it really made the Caterpillar C7 snort (probably a good test for the mountains out West). Beth discovered that there was a Rest/Parking Area right on Cazenovia Lake. This was a perfect place to stop for lunch although we had to remain in the camper because it was raining.
We pulled into the campground around 4PM. This is a nice campground close to the State Park. We opted for full hookups which restricted us to 30 Amp power. Fortunately we can get both air conditioners running on 30 Amps if we restrict the refrigerator and water heater to propane gas instead of electricity. This was necessary as the temperature climbed into the 90’s on our last day. Initially we didn’t have good internet access from our Verizon Mi-Fi, but after connecting an antenna and testing several spots in the camper we were able to achieve 5 Mbs upload/download speeds. There were no trees near our site (#3) so we were able access all three satellites on the Dish Western Arc. Although our site looked fairly level, it wasn’t. We moved the RV several times on the site to find the spot that was closest to level, but our passenger front tire ended up several inches off the ground once “Bubbles” leveled the RV. If we were staying longer I would have driven the right side up on ramps.
Today Beth, her sister Lori, and I hiked the trail around Lake Myosotis in Rensselaerville, NY (Albany County) at the Hucyk Preserve. It was a beautiful day with low humidity and temperatures in the mid 70’s. There are dams at both the northern and southern ends of the lake. The dam at the southern end leads to a series of beautiful waterfalls. Lori brought along some delicious chicken sandwiches and we stopped at the top of the falls and enjoyed them along with the beautiful view. The hikes up and down the inclines next to the falls were fairly steep and by the time we finished our day we had 3.7 miles under our belts and were fairly whooped. We stopped at a Stewart’s Shop on the way home to to refuel with ice cream which we felt we had definitely earned.
Today Beth, her sister Donna, and I celebrated Independence Day by hiking from their family homestead down to the fire station where the Sacandaga River Pathway begins. This is a nice wide hiking trail with quite a bit of boardwalk. There were a lot of mosquitoes, but it was not quite as bad as Fawn Lake Trail. The total round trip hike from the house was 2.3 miles.
Sacandaga River Pathway
The Sacandaga River with Speculator Mountain in the Background
Beth and I hiked Fawn Lake Trail today. It was a nice wide trail (2.8 mile round trip). The only difficulties encountered were traversing around several wet spots and lots of mosquitoes. We had to reapply our bug spray when we got to the lake.
The lake was beautiful and we watched and listened to two loons as they fished about one hundred yards offshore.
Beth’s sisters Lori and Donna took us hiking at Hannacroix Creek Preserve. The preserve lies between Hannacrois Creek and the Hudson River. We took the path along the creek which leads to a water fall. It started with a fairly steep uphill climb which quickly reminded us that we don’t have hills in Florida. After returning to the parking lot, we followed a trail across the road that led to the Hudson River. The trails were nice and we logged just under three miles.
We started the day with breakfast at Cracker Barrel (Yay!). As always, it was delicious. Today’s drive was 245 miles and we arrived at Beth’s sister Kathy’s house near Albany at 2PM. The traffic through Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York was the heaviest we have encountered on this trip and it rained most of the way. We will have to consider another route the next time we come to Albany because the roads we took today were in very bad shape. We came over the top of a hill on I-287 in New York and had to slow for flashing lights and quite a few vehicles pulled off on the right side of the road ahead. It’s a good thing we were slowing down, because we had no way around some major potholes in the road. We hit a huge one that had rebar exposed that hit so hard it yanked the steering wheel hard left. I thought sure we would have damage, but we appear to have survived it. Needless to say, all of the cars on the side of the road had flat tires (probably bent rims too).
The weather in Albany is perfect and we are looking forward to more of the same. We went to the local Cracker Barrel and picked up a takeout order of their new Fried Chicken and some mashed potatoes and green beans to eat with the family back at the house. Terry stopped by before her shift started at 4PM and both Lori and Donna came by after work and joined us for dinner.
