We had a wedding to attend in Cape Cod and a friend to visit in Vermont. These two stops and some ocean time in between were the only items on our agenda, so unlike our usual mad dash to nowhere in particular, we took our time and managed to stretch the 10 hour each-way trip over 13 days.
We chose to cross the border at Thousand Island Bridge and take the back roads through New York State and Vermont to Massachusetts and then backtrack home via New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and New York.
Our first stop was at Erwin Park near Boonville in Oneida County to look at the beautiful covered bridge that we spotted from the road. This magnificent 70′ bridge was built in 2005, but it incorporates the lattice truss design patented on January 28, 1820, and again in 1835.
After a very pleasant stay boondocking at the Harvest Hosts Crazy Williez brewery, and surprisingly not hungover, we slowly made our way south through the back roads of New York State and into Vermont’s Green Mountains region.
We stopped at a couple of the Erie Canal locks to watch the boats float up and go through the locks. The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor is a new kind of National Park that is federally designated as a National historic Landmark, but not federally owned or managed. Instead, a partnership between businesses, organizations, individuals, the state, and cities and towns along the route, to preserve and operate the park.
Lock 16 has a very special feature. The grass is mostly composed of fragrant thyme and it was so much fun walking on it. We smelled of thyme for hours after that.
Watching the locks open to let a yacht through was riveting as well. We just love locks.
The Erie Canalway includes 524 miles of navigable waterway. A 350 mile long trail runs parallel to the canals and once completed it will be the longest multi-use trail in the US features miles of trails. If you like biking but don’t like biking along busy roads, there are hundreds of miles of continuous trails that you can safely bike on.
Next we stopped at some of Mohawk County historic sites. Rich in history, the area echos with scenes from the British America conflict.
The first was the old Palatine church, which is one of the oldest churches in the Mohawk Valley. It was built by Lutheran Palatine Germans in 1770. The land for the church was donated by an American loyalist so the British troops spared his church during their rampage of the Mohawk valley. He fled to Canada, never to return to his beloved church.
and then the two Stone Arabia Churches (Palatine and Dutch Reform) were both built in the late 18th century.
We just sampled a few of the historical attraction in the area. There are dozens of interesting sites/sights that are intertwined with American/Canadian/British/Native Americans history.
Some comments about our melancholic and disassociated GPS. We were less than happy with the Promaster’s navigation system even though it was one of the features that we initially liked about the camper. The display is too small and not very easy to use so we decided to splurge and get a good (and expensive) GPS. We chose the Garmin RV 770 since it had some special features such as height restrictions along the route.
This is the first trip we used it and it’s great. The only thing we have to get used to is the female voice that comes out of it. She kind of reminds us of April from Parks and Rec with her monotone, slightly sadistic speech mannerism.
We decided to continue to the Green Mountains for the night so we drove on. April proved to be a great navigator despite her obvious dislike of us; we are getting fonder and fonder of her.
Stopped for a short break by the Green River and contemplated on the reasons it was brown. Was there a storm? Is it the minerals? Was it ever green?
A brief stop in Manchester, Vermont for gas and we have yet another question: we don’t buy a lot of fresh produce when we travel because of border crossings and storage constraints, so our few tomatoes one onion and one green pepper looked lost in the giant bags provided by the supermarket. We unsuccessfully tried to find smaller bags. Why do we need 5 gallon bags for produce? How many people buy so many vegetables of the same kind at once, and if some do, why do they need to be the norm? Here is the bag with one very large onion in it. A third of this size would have sufficed.
It says on the bag more matters, is there something that we are missing? It seems like a waste as well as gross overuse of plastic. Please educate us if you have an answer for this.
Enough with questions and rants for now.
Eastern US is not great for boondocking and National Forests are sometimes the next best thing. They are not as cheap as BLM campground – usually around $20. We spent the night at Hapgood Pond Recreation Area Campground in the Green Mountains National Forest. We could have stayed at another Harvest host location, or perhaps Boondockers Welcome – both free, but we wanted a more natural setting.
The park was nice, with a few walking trails, and a good beach. We were early enough to sneak in a hike and some beach time and have a decent dinner. We are not used to luxuries such as these as we usually get to the campground fairly late.
And lots and lots of salamanders in the water. Or is it a Newt?
After a morning swim we continued towards the cape. To our horror, we found out that two tornados hit the area where the wedding will take place. Is the weather going to play it’s dirty tricks on us again? We are waiting to find out what the damage is and if this will have any impact on the wedding.
Last stop before entering the Cape is Myles Standish State park. This park has many small coves so that everyone has a private beach. We decided to stay for two nights even though we planned to drive to the tip of the cape the next day. This proved to be a bit of a mistake, but you’ll have to wait for our next post to find out more.
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Enjoyed reading your post. We have lived most of our lives in Western NY and know most of the area you were traveling through. You did give us some new places to visit on our next NY travel. We try to avoid plastic bags, its a California habit, we carry our own shopping bags with us and mostly remember to bring them into the store or on our forays into farm markets so we don’t pick up more plastic than absolutely necessary.
Thanks, Paul! We do too in Ontario. I have a huge stack of reusable bags in my car that I try to remember to take into the store with me. It’s harder to avoid using the in-store bags though. Those bags were so big!