Finger Lakes

Fair Haven, New York
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Mohawk River

We packed up all our loot from Vermont and headed out again. Every cranny and most nooks in the RV are stuffed with goodies from generous family. There’s armloads of beautiful clothes from my mom and Aunt Bon, fresh from the outlet stores in Manchester. Grandma’s paintings are in the closet wrapped in her handmade aprons. Vintage dishes and Aunt Lou’s afghan are hidden in the cupboard. Noni’s wine glass and Uncle Slam’s garden notes are tucked in a corner. Plus a box of Dad’s things he couldn’t carry on the plane. As a topper, we crammed in everything we bought – maple syrup, Vermont bourbon!, a case of Moxie, army pants Tim had to have, and new hiking boots I couldn’t live without.

I had to double-check the coach GCWR (gross combined weight rating) to make sure it wouldn’t explode. If a motorhome could bulge, we’d look like a ripe watermelon.

Loaded to the gills, we lumbered in a northwesterly direction to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Our RV planning guide reckoned it would be a 3-1/2 hour ride. In fact, it took almost twice as long to get here. Poor Tim did ALL the driving, as I’ve been fighting a cold all day (achoo!) plus I needed to navigate a complicated route – map in lap, along with two pages of hand-written directions. As we’ve discovered many times before, when we are in the mountains the GPS sets itself on Sherpa Mode and can’t be trusted to route the motorhome along safe, flat highways. It always wants to send us down some graveled logging road because it would shave .02 miles off the trip. So paper map it is.

Outside of Schenectady we traveled alongside the Mohawk River for a while. It was a pretty waterway, winding and bending through a fetching countryside, and at one point a section of the old Erie Canal ran happily in tandem with the river.

Off the interstate for much of the day, we passed through many little country towns most of which looked prosperous and idyllic. A small gale blew up around Fonda, and I was not fonda that twisting, pothole-filled little burgh.

Tonight we have camped at Fair Haven Beach State Park, located on the shores of Lake Ontario. There was a bit of a fuss checking in, as I did not have a current copy of the dog’s rabies vaccination – a strict rule which they really should have posted better on their reservation system. So there I was, coughing and sneezing all over the ranger’s prissy desk and making frantic phone calls to the vets back home. Dammit, which vet was that? Eventually all was resolved with a timely fax and we were at last permitted to proceed to our campsite, where we both collapsed in a heap.