Today we continued East departing from Camp Eriez on Lake Erie in Lake City, PA at 8:50AM EDT in a heavy rain. The rain didn’t stop until we reached I-86 and headed East a bit. We stopped for fuel at M&M Junction which Beth had discovered on last year’s trip. We think it’s on an Indian Reservation because fuel prices are significantly cheaper (50 cents this year) than at the nearby exits. As good as that price was, it was still 94 cents higher than last year.
One of our favorite movies is Nobody’s Fool (starring Paul Newman). The movie is based in Bath, NY and since we were passing by Bath we decided to exit and purchase groceries at their local grocery store located close to the interstate. After getting groceries we drove through the downtown area and tried to decide whether any of the buildings looked like ones we remember from the movie. Now after doing a bit of research I have discovered that the fictional town in the movie was “North Bath” and was actually filmed in Beacon, NY. I guess it pays to do your research ahead of time, but we were stopping for groceries somewhere today anyway and this store was conveniently close to the interstate. For those keeping track at home, Bath looked like a nice town, but don’t expect to see any scenes you’ve witnessed in movies.
Following our tour of Bath, we exited I-86 to take SR-226 in route to Watkins Glen, NY. What you can’t see on a map is that each of the Finger Lakes is located in a valley between decent sized mountains. Apparently the engineers that designed the roads in the area were unfamiliar with the concept of switchbacks (or even curves for that matter). We turned off SR-226 onto CR-23 to head into Watkins Glen and immediately encountered two things. The first was a sign indicating that there was a 5 ton weight limit (why not tell us before the turn) and that there were significant fines for perpetrators. They even posted a number to call in order to report said perpetrators. So now we’re breaking the law (no place to turn around) and hoping we don’t encounter a local constable when we see the steepest incline we’ve ever witnessed in our RV. We never really had a chance to get any momentum going so I dropped into third gear and hoped for the best. As we crawled up the hill we kept losing speed (as our engine temperature was on the rise). We dropped to second gear and continued to lose speed. There was a spot near the top where the grade decreased enough to seem level and let us build a little speed before becoming very steep again for the remaining half mile. We’ve been on much longer grades out West but nothing that steep. I checked on Google Earth this evening and that section of road had 10% to 13% grades (Wow!). Thank goodness it was only a 2.5 mile section.
Passing through Watkins Glen was nice. The view from the bottom of Seneca Lake was quite impressive. I remember coming to Watkins Glen on a childhood family trip. I remember Mom and Dad taking us to the race track. We never entered because it was raining. In fact all I remember about that trip was that it rained most of the time we were in New York. It was nice and sunny today as we passed through.
Our next challenge was the 8% – 9% grades coming out of Watkins Glen on SR-79. Although it was an effort, it seemed mild after the previous climb and once again was a fairly short distance. From there we headed to Ithaca, NY where the biggest issue was the 8% – 10% downhill grades coming into town. There were plenty of warning signs (including an area to pull off and test your brakes). We were able to ride the exhaust brake down the grades with no issues other than a string of cars behind us.
There wasn’t much about Ithaca that really caught my eye as we passed through. I didn’t expect Cornell University to be along the main traffic route and it indeed wasn’t. From there we followed SR-13 to Cortland, NY. Now that town had a lot of beautiful architecture. The homes along SR-13 entering town were quite impressive and there weren’t just a few. There must have been a lot of “well to do” residents in that town near the turn of the 20th century.
We arrived at Lebanon Reservoir Campground in Hamilton, NY at 4:00PM EDT. We were first assigned to Site #11. It wasn’t visually obvious, but the site had a serious decline from front to back. We had to break out all of our leveling wood and blocks and by the time “Bubbles” leveled the camper the passenger side rear tires were a good 8″ off the ground. We brought the RV down off the jacks and moved it back and forth on the site looking for an area that was more level, but it had a consistent downhill grade. Beth went back up to the office and asked for a different spot. They acknowledged that they had just built the sites (they don’t show up on the Google Maps satellite view) and were unaware that this site wasn’t very level. They had us move North three sites to Site #14. It was very level and we were able to drop the jacks and level without any wood or blocks. We were only able to get one satellite (61.5) using our roof antenna, so we broke out our portable antenna (R2D2) and placed it where we could access all three of the DISH Eastern Arc satellites. We have full hookups, but only 30 Amp electric (which we can get by on). There is no campground Wi-Fi. This is not a campground we would make an effort to return to, but it was really the only thing available at a reasonable price (beats the KOA in Watkins Glen for $125/night).
On our second day we went into town to eat lunch and make sure the roads we chose to get back to US-20 weren’t going to have any special surprises (i.e., a 13% grade hill). Hamilton, NY is a beautiful town and we discovered that Colgate University is located there. We drove through the campus. It is beautiful. I can’t imagine how beautiful it is when the leaves turn color. After our tour we ate lunch at Rusch’s Bar & Grill where Beth had a decent Philly Cheesesteak and I had a delicious Buffalo Chicken sandwich.
