LUNCH WITH LOVERN'S BROTHER ON HIS SON'S (TOM) LAKE

 

LEAVING FOR EUROPE

This will be our last blog until we return the end of July. We are going to Europe for a month.

We are currently at my nephew’s house on a lake in Sturbridge, Mass. He has been a wonderful host. Today my brother (his father) and sister-in-law have joined us here for lunch and dinner. They brought the lunch and it was lovely beside the lake. My nephew will take us to the Boston airport on Thursday (June 22) where we will take Jet Blue to the JFK airport to catch our flight to Madrid.

We are flying on Lufthansa to Madrid where we will join a two-week tour of Spain, Portugal and a day trip to Morocco. The towns we will visit are: Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Granada, Costa del Sol, Tetouan (in Morocco),Gibraltar, Seville, Lisbon, Fatima, Salamanca, Segovia. Then we catch a train from Madrid to Hendaye on the French coast where we will pickup our car and stay two nights in Biarritz and its beach on the Atlantic Ocean. Then it’s off to our rented place in the Dordogne area of France for two weeks. Dordogne is famous for its foie gras, truffles, and prehistoric cave paintings. We are joined the first week by two of our friends and then are on our own for the last week. We are looking forward to celebrating Bastille Day while we are there. Lovern seems to need this ‘French fix’ every so often. We fly home from Toulouse on July 23 and will resume our blog soon after.

LAKE SEREVE FROM OUR FRONT WINDOW

 

THE ADIRONDACKS, NY

We moved west to the Adirondacks. This park in Upstate New York covers 6.1 million acres, a third of the state, making it the biggest park in the US outside of Alaska. Most of the little villages and hamlets throughout this area average less than 1000 each in population. Other statistics include their highest 46 mountains of less than 4000 feet thought to be some of the oldest in the world. There are also 2300 lakes, 30,000 miles of streams and 2000 miles of trails. There are lots of opportunities for canoeing, fishing, hiking plus snowmobiling, skating and skiing in the winter.

On the way here, a wild turkey (no, not the bottled kind) hit our windshield. Luckily, it was a glancing blow. A doe nibbled grass less than six feet from the front of our RV a couple if times. Black bears are a big deal around here, every souvenir seems to sport one. The dumpsters in the park have electrical fencing around them that is turned on at night as well as lights to discourage the bears. (The squirrels have a good time though.) During hunting season 1066 black bears were shot last year. This is very close to wilderness up here.

There are lots of activities in this area, although summer season has not officially started. One of the first things we did was to take a cruise on the mail boat that services the first four lakes of the Fulton Chain of Lakes. Robert Fulton, inventor of the steam engine, was commissioned to find a waterway between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes. He thought this procession of lakes might be the answer. Instead the Erie Canal was built and put an end to that plan. The Chain is actually a series of eight lakes. The first five are connected but you have to portage to the others. These lakes have creatively been named First Lake, Second Lake, etc..

It was fun to watch the mail being passed off the mail boat at the different docks around the lakes. At some of the docks, family dogs were eagerly waiting as the mailman had treats for them. President Benjamin Harrison had a summer home on one lake and so got a Congressional decree to establish a mail boat on the lake in1906 so he could get his mail. The boat only operates in the summer. The captain and his mate knew everything about everyone around the lake: who sold his boat to who; when people were coming back; who had too much to drink last night; the homes of the rich and famous, etc. This is a very small town. One of the most intriguing places in town is the Old Forge Hardware and General Store. We have never seen such a complete assortment of items in one place. Run by two women, you can find anything you want from camping supplies, hardware, knickknacks, clothing, furniture, a bookstore, gourmet food, kitchen items, anything.

We took a day trip to the Adirondack Museum that is one of the finest regional museums in the country. Different exhibits are scattered over 32 acres. The exhibits demonstrated life in the Adirondacks from early times. The most fascinating to us was the collection of different styles of canoes and powerboats used on the waterways here over the years. There were even a couple of birch bark canoes.

A 100-year recognition of the drowning of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette is also being observed at nearby Big Moose Lake. It was made famous in Theodore Dreiser’s book “An American Tragedy” and later in the movies, “A Place In the Sun” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

On a Saturday, we took the Adirondack Railway tour through much of the primitive forest. Although it was raining and cold, we still had a lovely view of the countryside. We couldn’t get phone or internet service and the power was so low that we couldn’t run hardly any of our appliances. The temperature got down in the 40s in the middle of June.

HANDING OFF MAIL FROM THE MAILBOAT ON FOURTH LAKE

 

LOVERN BOARDING FOR SCENIC RIDE IN ADIRONDACKS

 

COVERED BRIDGE IN DOWNSVILLE BY OUR PARK

 

LITTLE BOY DECIDING TO LEAVE THE TOWN PARADE IN DOWNSVILLE

 

TWO WEEKS IN THE CATSKILLS...HEAVEN

We headed westward to the west side of the Catskill Mountains. Having visited New York City recently with its bustle and frenetic pace, it is a shock to encounter thousands of acres of unspoiled forest, pristine streams and bucolic farms and tiny villages only an hour away from the City. The trees have small trunks and so are compacted very close to each other, Zoe says it makes the hills ‘fuzzy’. Downsville in the Catskills proved to be more isolated even than Grand Isle at the tip of Louisiana that we thought was really out there. We lost access to our internet and cell phone and there was only one source of groceries. Ironically, it was an excellent natural food store with gourmet cheeses and any vitamin or food supplement that you might want (plus a great goat cheese from France).

This is an area of 1000s of acres of forest dotted with little villages. These are not tourist towns. The people all knew we were strangers. Very interesting.

The isolation of the place actually forced us to relax. What else could you do? It was good for us. There were several thunderstorms and heavy rainfalls that caused us to stay inside. The blooming rhododendrons and lilacs and, of course the rain, reminded us of Washington state. The sun came out all Memorial Weekend though and brought out families from New York and New Jersey. It was nice to see the children out playing instead of in front of a TV or Game Boy.

This area is world famous for its trout streams even presidents have come here. We do not fish so contented ourselves listening to stories from our neighbor. We went to the Memorial Day parade in town but barely had time to set up our chairs before the parade was over. It was fun though to see the enthusiasm of the participants (who mostly were all related to people in the audience). One little boy about three years old was in a little car being pulled by his mother. He decided he had had enough and climbed out. Another three year old near us quickly went out to take over until his mother rescued him.

We eventually drove 30 miles to Sidney to use the computer in the library there to catch up on the 75 emails in our inbox. We had just missed the mobile internet bus in Downsville. We got a few needed groceries and then went to the ‘big city’ of Delhi (population 2000+) to get our long tresses chopped off. We felt very cosmopolitan after that.

HOW YOU GET THE INTERNET IN THE CATSKILLS