First of all, it's been a few days. So I added some pretty pictures to dull the pain of our absence in your lives. Aren't they cool?! They show me on the Lake Champlain Ferry "Plattsburg", heading on a 12 minutes ride to Burlington Vermont. My niece's suggestion, and a very good one. Save us hours of driving and it was beautiful and fun. For those of us interested in ferries, here's a list of the Lake Champlain fleet - fascinating!
http://www.ferries.com/gfx/fleet.pdf
Now I'll back up to August 18th, or "Leaving Buffalo for Hell Day." Is that clear enough? Wings and Niagara Falls were so damn cool - a travel day of beauty and interesting sights, an evening full of excellent wings and those Falls! Does not get any better.
The 18th was our light day, only 125 miles to New York's Thousand Islands and Long Point State Park. Another ride up the coast of Lake Erie, checking out houses and bays and water and backroads. We obviously didn't get the memo that there is no coast road so we were inland; the scenery was mundane and boring; there were no highlights, landmarks, interesting stops on this road. To make it worse, I just didn't pay attention to the roads we needed at a certain point, and what would have taken us to the coast we didn't turn on. Instead we ended up off course with no landmarks in sight - can you hear the banjo playin'? 125 miles turned into a nightmare of not finding a convenient gas station, losing the road we needed (12E, not F!)which ended with personalities being shown the way to Cranky McCranksterville.
One of our biggest problems is turning around. If you take the wrong country road, you can't just turn into a driveway and back up into the road. Blue is 34' with another 10'+ of car and tow dolly. Although Tony has done an amazing job of actually backing up the whole shitteree in a pinch, it is stressful. On this day we waited too long to stop for ice cream and diesel, didn't see the sign to Long Point as it was AT THE ROAD YOU NEED TO TURN ON!, could not find anywhere to turn around. Some homes with turnaround driveways even have signs that say "No public turnaround." We ignored one at a business the other day. We finally had to turn around, so ended up blocking a road, inching back and forth - yes, for your amusement, picture me as Marge on the rear port side of the RV, using arm and hand signals to guide Tony - the only thing he really cares about is not hitting his beloved Sebring. So far I have lead him down the right path with my airtight arm movements. It annoys me to stand back there and signal, as I feel like a wife from 1952, oh yeah, except I'm not wearing a dress, hose and pumps. Check out Lucille Ball in "The Long, Long Trailer" sometime. Not me.
I am burned by now, unable to speak, a little pissed and hurt that I have done such a great job of navigating and now it all seems tossed out the window because of today's delays. Off we drive toward Long Point, and drive, and drive - seems like in circles. It's another 30 minutes to the park, not all that well marked either, little bitty brown signs. I'm cross eyed, Tony is just cross. But at last we arrive, and the park is a stunner. Some of you have see our "living room" pictures on Facebook and know what I mean. Long Point is names such because it's a long, skinny peninsula, so camping is conducted on both sides. The lawns are trimmed, the spaces are on grass, the water is viewed from every camping spot.
We quickly plug in and get outside, Tony in the sun, me in a chair to enjoy the view. And pout a bit, trying to not take everything so personally! Tony wanders over to the table and we're talking about how beautiful, how perfect the park is...and also how awful the drive was today. We expected a short day, but instead had a long, tedious day. I told him I was hurt, he said he wasn't mad....blah, blah, blah. Done deal. We took a long walk later and enjoyed the sunset - stunning.
Here's what we experienced:
It became better, because of this beautiful park.
More!
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