Packed up and were out by 8:30, a quick stop at the Canandaigua Water Treatment Plant to dump, then McDonalds to pick up a bagel breakfast, then onwards toward Lake Luzerne in the Adirondacks in eastern New York State. We avoided the thruway because it would have cost us $60 to go 166 miles, and we weren’t in THAT much of a hurry, so we took a more scenic route. Stopped once more at the Walmart in Amsterdam for supplies before heading out to the campground, arriving aroun 4:30. Didn’t take long to check in, and reached our campsite shortly thereafter. The campground is mostly wooded, though at the end of the cul-de-sac there is a dirt road that goes around to an open field where there are a few covered stalls and a LOT of paddocks. If we had wanted a satellite signal and to be closer to the water spigot, we should have picked site 18 or 19, but we opted for 22, which is a large area on the edge of the woods. Since that took us about as far away from the paddocks as possible, and because there was no shade there, we opted to highline the horses in the forest, which was very convenient. Our only neighbors are a couple with an antique, round-edged trailer next door, and a couple of horse trailers around the back near the paddocks. We filled the tanks and I started a load of laundry so that I could get at least one load hung before dark. Enjoyed a quiet night, as there are tight restrictions on generator use, so we had ours off by 8:00, watching a great old movie “The Man Who Knew Too Much” off the batteries until early bedtime.
Archives for 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012 – Travel Day to Lake Luzerne Horse Camp, NY
Sunday, August 5, 2012 – Day at Friend’s Cottage on Honeoye Lake
Did some preliminary packing before setting out to visit with friends at a cottage owned by one of them down on Honeoye Lake, a short 20 minute drive from the farm. Got back before 7:00, did some more packing, then headed to bed for an early start in the morning.Saturday, August 4, 2012 – Return to Pittsford Day
Well, the day for which we came here has arrived! Did some running around earlier in the day to find a tool Hubby needed and to pick up some groceries for the picnic before heading out to Powder Mills Park, with a stop at Abbott’s Frozen Custard in Bushnell’s Basin for a quick ice cream lunch (better to stave off the temptation of what will certainly be mostly junk food at the picnic), enjoying a leisurely few minutes sitting on a park bench by the Erie Canal. Arrived just as the festivities were getting underway. Had a great time, saw many of the friends I got reacquainted with last year, plus quite a few more that I hadn’t seen since high school, mostly from other classes, which is why I thought this was such a great idea, a cross-class reunion. Thoroughly enjoyed myself, and Hubby was very patient and understanding as he sat to one side with the dogs most of the day. Eventually things wrapped up, and those of us that were left headed downtown to the Pittsford Pub for a nightcap. A great time was had by all!Friday, August 3, 2012 – Short Ride and Visit with Friends at Cayuga Lake Cottage
After breakfast, Hubby and I saddled up the horses for a quick ride around Beth’s property. They have about five acres of scrub trees, shrubs and bushes that they’ve very cleverly bush-hogged a bunch of trails through, to provide a meandering feel of a much larger space. It was a bit hot in the sun, but it was a good shake-down ride in any event, enough to get the horses stretched out. We trotted and even cantered in a few places, and just as we were heading back to the barn, I discovered I had lost my phone! After a brief look around, we realized that we’d never find it in the long grass without hearing it ring, so we went back to the RV, put the horses away, then got on Skype on the computer so we could ring the phone. I took the walkie talkie and the dogs and started walking around the field. After several trials and errors, and at one point taking the dogs back to the RV because they were panting so hard in the heat I couldn’t hear anyting (though Billy slipped out and found me again anyway), I finally managed to locate the phone, right where I had been looking but would never had seen it, it was so deep in the grass. Shucks, I was kind of hoping I’d be able to persuade Verizon into letting me upgrade three weeks early, darn it! Anyway, job done, we showered and got dressed and headed down to Cayuga Lake to visit a friend and her husband at their cottage. Had a lovely afternoon with them, before heading back in the evening.Thursday, August 2, 2012 – Dinner with PMHS Friends
Slept late, spent most of the day getting caught up on lots of work that had been let go because of all the activity lately. Arranged to have dinner at Flaherty’s in Macedon, quite a nice Irish pub and restaurant, with a bunch of friends I had gotten reacquainted with at last year’s reunion. Started out in the pub at 6:00, then worked our way into the dining room around 7:00, enjoying a rare draft beer (well, black and tan actually), some very nice lobster bisque and a nice piece of steak that Hubby and I shared. Lots of fun and laughter, and even got to meet a friend’s sister, who just coincidentally happened to be having dinner at the same time! The universal spirit at work again! A fabulous evening, very enjoyable for all!Wednesday, August 1, 2012 – Travel Day to Brookfield, NY
Got up at a reasonable hour, had some breakfast, then finished up packing up. Then it was time to bring the RV slides in, and the bedroom came in fine, as usual, but the living room refused to go. No motor engagement, no whirring, no nothing, dead. We tested the power sources all around, including the switch, and after an hour, came to the conclusion it had to be the motor. Fortunately, our hosts knew of a motor shop, someone that specialized in electric motors, and Sharon ran me over there in her truck with the motor in hand. After a 20 minute drive, we arrived at the shop, where a genius of a guy managed to find a loose wire inside, tightened it, said one of the brushes was a bit worn but otherwise it worked fine, and got it working again! Yeah! We were afraid we were going to have to find a replacement, and how knows how complicated that might have become! A quick ride back, Hubby reinstalled the motor, it worked like a dream, and off we went, doling out praise to our rescuers and hosts before heading down the road to our next stop, another farm in Brookfield, NY called Thistledale, and run by Beth Harrison. Though we were running late, Beth was running later, so we arrived around 3:30, she arrived around 4:00. It didn’t take us long to get settled in, way back by her barn with a paddock right next door for the horses, electric provided and water run from a source clear on the other side of the barn, but a hose already in place, thank goodness. A quick setup, a quick shower, a quick change of clothes, a quick feeding of all the animals, and off we went to meet my old childhood friend Mary and her husband Garry at an Italian restaurant at Eastview Mall, about 30 minutes away. Great to see them again, had a lovely dinner, a lovely evening, wish we could have spent more time with them, but we have just too much stuff to do, things are so hectic!! We said our good-byes just as the sun was setting and a gorgeous full moon was rising, truly a spectacular sight! A short drive “home,” and we were settled down for the night.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 – Wasted Day at Miracle Ear
For some time now, we’ve known we’ve had to get Hubby some hearing aids. He’s had them before, but they were never adequate, and with some big jobs coming up, we felt it was really time to get on top of it. We needed to get them from someplace national so they could be adjusted anywhere, rather than from a regular audiologist, which we wouldn’t keep coming back to. So we decided to go to Miracle Ear, who had an outlet in a Sears store about 15 miles away. After a good night’s sleep (though not long enough!), we headed out to Finger Lakes Mall, which was mostly like a ghost town. We stopped for ice cream first, then went in for our afternoon appointment. We walked in prepared to pay whatever we needed to get the job done, and the woman there gave Hubby the usual tests, then pulled out a book of models and one demo of one kind of hearing aid, but not the kind Hubby really wanted. We asked to see one of those, and she told us she didn’t have any other demo models. Well, we started asking more questions, and she started getting really vague on us, until finally she had the audacity to respond, “You don’t need to know that, that’s for me to know.” Needless to say, that answered didn’t set well with either one of us, but it went from bad to worse. When I asked the difference between two similar models, she replied, “The features.” When I asked which features, she had no other answer, just “The features,” but she couldn’t tell me which features. Then she finally got on the phone and asked someone else, with the preface, “I have a client whose wife wants to know this,” in a tone of voice that made it clear she was losing patience with me. Tough. Finally, after three hours of gradually deteriorating answers, we finally said we weren’t about to shell out $6000 for something we couldn’t even see and that couldn’t be explained to us, and that was that. What a waste!! We walked in ready to buy and the saleswoman managed, over time, to talk us right out of it with her incompetence. Tiresome, pointless exercise. So many other, better ways we could have spent our day! Headed back to the ranch exhausted, but we still did a few simple things to pack up in preparation for our departure tomorrow.
Monday, July 30, 2012 – Travel Day back to Syracuse
Got up bright and early (and having packed all our now clean clothing!), we said our good-byes and headed out to Washington, DC. No problems with traffic, dropped Hubby off at the terminal, then turned in our rental car (though it took me awhile to find the off-site parking, my GPS has been notoriously unreliable lately, ever since it downloaded an “upgrade” recently), but the shuttle got me back in plenty of time. Arrived to discover that our flight was delayed anything, first for half an hour, then for another hour, until the departure time was equal to the original arrival time. We settled down in a nice restaurant for the duration, had a quiet meal before heading to the gate at what was now supposed to be nearly 90 minutes before our flight departure time. Alas, they pulled a fast one, and swapped out planes, so now we heard our names being called over the PA system, apparently they were trying to get everyone on board this new plane ASAP. We heard the first announcement that our flight was actually BOARDING about the time we arrived at security! I managed to get through okay, but Hubby’s suitcase had a bunch of business cards that I had ordered scattered throughout his carryon, and they must have looked like little plastic bricks of C4 or something, because they insisted it all be taken out and re-scanned. I ran down to the gate (which thankfully was close by the security area rather than at the far end of the terminal, which is how it usually goes) to let them know we were on the way, then ran back to help Hubby re-pack everything. We arrived hurriedly, than ended up sitting on the shuttle bus for another half hour while other passengers got rounded up. Finally we set off to board the plane (from the tarmac, not at a gate, that’s how small the jet was) and got settled in, about 45 minutes after the original departure, but 45 minutes before the re-scheduled departure. That caused problems, though, because apparently the airport manager wouldn’t let them re-set the time yet again, even though we were ready to go. The pilot came on and made an announcement about it, and he sounded ticked because they were trying to make a turnaround that would get them back to Florida, but the delay was going to cause them to have to spend the night in DC, and if we wanted to complain we should write to Danielle the manager at our convenience!! I’ve never heard that one before! Anyway, something happened, and 15 minutes later we were off the ground winging our way back to Syracuse, arriving about an hour late, but still before it got dark, thankfully. We even had time to run by Country Max to pick up the four bags of Legends Senior Feed we had special ordered, if we had been much later they would have closed and we would have had to make yet another trip out of our way. So in the end, everything worked out, as it so often seems to do! Got back to happy dogs and happy horses and our happy, soft and comfy bed!Sunday, July 29, 2012 – Rest Day with Friends and Olympics
Another day like yesterday, without the side trip, though Toni offered to take us to a few local venues, which we politely declined. Frankly, we just need the rest! They were happy to oblige. We had one short “business” meeting, which was partially the reason for the visit, which might lead to a future collaboration, but most of the day was sharing wine and food and relaxing and Olympics. Very happy to have put some deposits in our sleep bank, we’ve been running on empty lately! Thank goodness most of the beds we’ve had have been comfortable, but we’re still looking forward to getting back to our airbed!
Saturday, July 28, 2012 – Day with Friends and Olympics
Spent the day in lively conversation with our friends, mostly watching the Olympics in between chats, with one side trip to some other friends of theirs who have a horse farm about 20 minutes away. Got to meet their very large horses (especially after being around the ponies all week!), with draft feet and thoroughbred lines, an amazing combination of breeds. Spent a pleasant hour in conversation with them before heading back to Don and Toni’s for another relaxing evening. Again, just what we needed!