Adirondacking

Sometimes I get to the end of a day and have trouble remembering the details of everything that went on that day.  Not that everything was particularly significant or memorable but even the more significant events get a little foggy rather fast, so it’s a good exercise to write them down before they disappear altogether.  That’s why I spend the time doing this, to help me remember some of those details that would otherwise be lost forever. 

Or I could just ask Deb.  She seems to remember just about everything.

It was quite foggy (real fog, not brain fog) this morning when we got up.  I guessed that it was just low-lying fog that collected in the valleys and I was proven right when we climbed the first of several steep hills and popped out of the fog into the brilliant sunshine.  If I would have had a good place to park, I would have launched the drone and taken a couple pictures from the air.  I’m sure it would have been dramatic, with all the valleys socked in with fog on a sunny day.

Today we moved on from the Finger Lakes region towards the Adirondacks.  There’s a lot of stuff we could still do here but we must be moving on.  We’re still perfecting the slow-travel thing, but still have a tendency to pack as much in as possible, and cover as much distance as possible, in as short of time as possible.  The time thing we’re starting to get on top of. Retirement has certainly helped in that department.  Taking six weeks instead of one or two certainly allows more flexibility in how much time to spend in a particular area.  Now we just have to learn not to just pack in a whole bunch more areas and fill in all the extra time.  Like I said, it’s a work in progress.

Highway 414 on the east side of Seneca Lake is designated a scenic route.  And it offers some great views of Seneca Lake, along with farms and vineyards and vacation homes from the vantage of the top of the bluff above the lake.  If you like wine tasting,  you will be completely plastered by the time you get to the other end of this route.  There is a winery every 100 feet, or so it seems.  Multiply that by 20 miles and that’s a lot of sips of wine.

As we approached Seneca Falls, we were driving though some Amish country.  It’s always a treat to stop in at some of their stores and Deb had already plotted out the route to Stoltzfus Family Farms, a neat-as-a-pin store offering fresh produce and baked goods.  We extended the corn season once again by purchasing a few ears of corn.

A little farther down the road was Sauder’s Store, a cavernous grocery store and deli also operated by the Amish/Mennonite community.  Deb came away with raspberry/dark-chocolate flavored peanut butter.  They had a lot of stuff I have never heard of before.

This place was just outside the city limits of Seneca Falls, where we stopped to check out a few things.

First of all, this town was the inspiration for Bedford Falls, the fictional setting of the 1946 movie ​It’s A Wonderful Life​, complete with the bridge where George Bailey was going to commit suicide.

We saw a bakery called It’s A Wonderful Bakery and walked the three blocks to get there, but found only a large empty space with no baked goods and a woman who said they were transitioning from only catering baked goods to actually offering something in the storefront.  Bakery visits: we’re zero for three so far.

This town is perhaps better knows for the start of the women’s suffrage movement, when the 1848 women’s rights convention was held.  The National Park Service has preserved the chapel where some of the speeches of that convention were heard and a few homes of the women who started the movement.

Unfortunately, when reading through the displays and the literature, you can see that the great strides made by women are being hijacked by today’s brand of feminism, and even gender identity, which is threatening the very existence of this thing called woman, burying the uniqueness of womanhood under a load of identity confusion and political agenda.

We spent some time while we still had cell service looking for a place to stay for the night.  Many of the campgrounds have shut down for the season, and, here in New York, you have to reserve a site by 3pm that day to be able to camp.  Walk-ins are not allowed.  Probably their way of ensuring that you pay the $7.50 online reservation fee.

We found and reserved a campsite at Moffitt Beach State Campground and then took off towards said campground, still 2.5 hours away.  We knew we were in the Adirondacks when we lost all cell service and any semblance of towns.  There would be towns listed on the map, but they amounted to nothing, not even a wide spot in the road.

Our best chance for a town was Speculator, just a mile or two from the campground, population: 400.  We hoped it would have some place to eat as we were starting to feel hungry.  We could always make something, but we usually have pizza on Saturdays, and we had a hankering for pizza.

Upon entering Speculator, one of the first places we spotted was Firetower Pizza, hiding behind another defunct pizza joint.  We came away with an 18-inch pie and took it down to the city beach overlooking Lake Pleasant.  A park bench was the ideal spot to eat, overlooking the lake and the mountains beyond.  Speculator may not have a lot, but the pizza was good and the view was fantastic.

We hung out at the park for a while, climbing the fire tower, strolling through the little tribute to Route 66, and walking the trail along the Sacandaga River.  I took a few aerial pictures of the area using the drone.