On our way home

The last leg of our trip took us through Vermont’s Green Mountains and through the Adirondack Mountains and northern New York State.  Still a lot to see!

We left Hapgood Pond and drove through strings of quaint New England villages.  The unique architecture ranging from Colonial to Victorian and everything in between is really interesting.  We especially appreciated the   connected barns.  Makes so much sense in cold climates!

One village stood out for us.  As we drove around a curve we spotted what seemed like a waterfall by the side of the road and we turned around and parked by the side of the road to take a look.  It was a small waterfall over a dam in a village names Pawlet.

When we turned around and looked at the other side of the road we saw the craziest structure hanging over the gorge.

This is Mach’s General Store, which unfortunately closed down recently after a valiant local effort to keep it open.  It is now being renovated and will hopefully reopen soon.   It’s such a cool structure.  One of the neat features of this building is a glass floor over the gorge, and if you watch the video below you will be able to hear more about it and catch a glimpse of the gorge through the glass floor at 1:15.

We wondered around the village a bit, but it was time to move on.   Look!  We found another lock!  Lock 11 near Comstock, NY.  Of course we stopped for a quick look, but no boats were in sight so we moved on.

Driving through the Adirondack Park

Our next stop was Shelving  Rocks Waterfall.  There are so many swimming holes for local residents with free access and very low key atmosphere.  We were a bit envious, thinking about Ontario with it’s many private beaches and restricted access to many of the lakes.

The town of Speculator, Lake Pleasant, and Moffit Beach Campground were our next destination.  We kept reading speculator as spectacular and only realised that the name was Speculator when we looked at the pictures.  But it was spectacular. Really.

This was the view from our window

and these were our lovely neighbours

We were so lucky with our campsites on this trip and it’s prime season too!

More swimming, and an amazing and prolonged sunset to enjoy by the water edge.

It’s time to do some serious hiking to flush out all of the wedding food/booze, seafood joints, and food truck food (there was a giant burrito that we forgot to mention).

So we chose Panther Trail, a short trail with an abrupt 482 feet elevation gain – so pretty steep. Our app informed us that we climbed the equivalent of 55 floors so we were a little out of breath after the steep climb.  When we got to the top we were really out of breath, because the panoramic view was truly breathtaking.

Really breathtaking!

Next, we chose an easier, flatter trail.  Auger Falls Trail was a pretty and easy trail with a nice waterfall at the end of the trail.

And just like that we reached a 25,000 km milestone.  It’s been almost a year (another milestone) and it looks like we used the campervan well so far.

Looking at the fuel gauge above reminds us that we wanted to share a tip with Canadians using a Canadian credit card at the pump. Wen you are prompted to enter your zip card and doesn’t accept your postal code, you need to enter the digits of your postal code (omitting the letters) and add two zeros.   For example: if your postal code is L0L 0L0 you take the three zeros and add to more: 00000.  I’m sure most of you know this, but there was a time we did not, so hopefully it helps some of you.

There was beautiful vista along the way and we took a few photos in some of the overlooks.

This historic synagogue is on the US register of national historic places

Darn, we missed the most amazing photo op of a prey bird carrying snake.  It literally laboured in the air in front of our car and we just weren’t fast enough with the camera.  By the time we thought to check the dash cam, that footage was already erased.  Bummer.

Last campground on our trip was Higley Flow State Park.  The campsites, again, were great, but this seemed to be more of a boater campground.  Still, we had a short hike and found the graves of the original land owners.

The next day we dumped our tanks, and the latest mod to streamline dumping works great!

The next day we made it to the St. Lawrence River and slowly drove along the river. Ogdensburg and Alexandria Bay area has a few parks that are worth checking out.  One of them is Fort de La Présentation, a mission fort that was built in 1749.  There are lots of interpretive signs along the way.

There was an old trash midden along the shore and we picked up 2 marbles to use as level checkers (the last 2 photos above).  It’s the little things that make us happy…

One more stop at an overlook

The Thousand Island Bridge

and we are almost over to the other side.

We made it home to find some crazy giant lilies blooming.

It does look and feel as if summer is is about to end.  It must be a genetic urgency, or deep Eastern European roots to start pickling and preserving food.

The van always seems to be in the background. Waiting.

BY THE NUMBERS

• drove 3560 km (2,157 miles)
• fuel average 7.12 km/l (16.75 mpg)
• cost of fuel CAD$506 (US$384)
• camping fees CAD$265 (US$203)

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