New York or Bust - Day 4

Packing up and travelling home day and yet, mysteriously, very little rain. Very odd.


It took us a while to hitch the trailer to the Sienna, my backing up skills having forsaken me somewhat. It was a bit touch and go getting the electrical connector to fit, it still being a little mangled, but it went together in the end. Getting the trailer out from some very nearby trees and yet avoiding putting the car into the drainage ditch was proving a little difficult but we managed, albeit that we ended up facing the wrong way on the road. 


Holding tank dumping went well and we were even able to flush the poo tank properly as there was some piped water handy. A secondary check of the lights found that the connector wasn't quite as well connected as we'd thought. Still, a bit more wrestling with it and all was hunky dory.


Then we were off! Hugging the lake again, ignoring all entreaties from the man in the Sat Nav to turn left, heading for the New York Thruway once more. It was nice to do the trip in the daylight, especially as we had to overtake a tractor on the lake road. Once on the Freeway we headed towards Buffalo and realised just how windy it was. We were driving right into the gale, and rain later on in the day, and the gas needle was plummeting! I kept it at 60mph and let everything overtake us, and I mean everything. The speed limit was 65mph but like in Canada, that only seemed to be only a suggestion. 

After just one stop, we rolled into Buffalo and made for the border crossing over at Lewiston. Unfortunately, so did everyone else, so the queue for the immigration check was epic. There was nothing we could do about it, though, and amused ourselves watching people trying to jump the line and failing miserably. The lady on the customs post did have a bit of a double take when she misread the date on my permit and asked how I came to have a form issued that very day. She backed off when she realised that it said March, not May, so we were allowed to proceed, actually a bit more quickly than many around us.

Back into Canada and we still had the wind. Shame we didn't have the gas as well because I had to take a detour to fill up, frightening everyone in the gas station as I swung the Airstream into a position by the pumps. That bit of road skirts the western end of Lake Ontario and it was ever so windy. That said, the Airstream followed obediently and we cruised past a truck towing a lighter trailer that was being dragged all over the place with the gusts.

Lake Ontario, next to the QEW

We still had to negotiate the Niagara Escarpment at Hamilton and I was wondering how the Toadmobile would manage, being fully loaded and with the wind against us and all. I needn't have worried, though, because although chugging at 90 Kph, we powered up the hill and even accelerated to pass a truck; goodness I was proud!


Then it was just wind and rain all the way home. We ended up being mighty close to running out of gas at the end but just managed to get into Chatham before we expired. 


It was 350 miles from Taughannock Falls to Chatham and we had used two full tanks of fuel, recording a dreadful 10.5 mpg (US), which is 12.5 mpg (Imperial). Shocking!


Still, it was a great weekend and I'm really pleased we did the trip. 


Next up is a local trip to Goderich; I hope we can better that gas mileage. 

New York or Bust - Day 3

Day 3 dawned as the prospect of eggs and bacon had everyone up relatively early.


American bacon is not what I'm used to these days; the style we Brits enjoy is known as Peameal over here and isn't always available. American bacon is like thin streaky, but requires cooking until crisp, which is OK I suppose; when in Rome, eh?


Cooking outdoors is always great and the scrambled egg was added to the bacon skillet (after removing the bacon and most of the grease), so we had a lovely oatmeal effect to the eggs. Mind you, the egg burned onto the supposedly non-stick skillet  and poor old Mrs T (who had rashly volunteered) had to scrape it all off again. Hey ho, it was a good start.

I took the tadpoles down to the lake level, on foot this time, and we then proceeded to climb back up the hill, following the rim trail overlooking the valley. A mixture of steps and steep hill, we walked a mile or so until we were right up above the falls. The tadpoles were great, enjoying the views and not complaining (much) about the exertion. I think they enjoyed the walk back down the hill better, though.


Then it was across country to Watkins Glen State Park. The countryside was very English looking with dips and hollows and roads that weren't arrow straight. The fields were small, too, and some were bounded with lines of trees; it was all most bucolic. There was a startling gap to be seen, though, in the relative prosperity of some of the dwellings. Near the lake and on the bigger farms, houses were large and well cared for, some made from stone, too. Further inland, though, there were lots of "Trailer Homes", many of them looking very ramshackle but all occupied. This is an aspect of the US that we don't get to see in films and on TV, and this is all in the relatively affluent New York State; I think it gets worse the further south you go. In the UK, and Canada, there may not be as many fabulously opulent homes, but then there are way fewer poor dwellings, too. America certainly is a land of contrast.


On that theme, the town of Watkins Glen didn't exactly excite, it too looking a bit run down. For the motor racing buffs, the Watkins Glen circuit is just outside of town and most weekends in the summer will see the place filled with motor racing types.


Watkins Glen State Park was, though, something else. Firstly, we didn't have to pay anything to get in as our pass for Taughannock Falls was good there. Then we headed off to a little walkway through the rock and into whole new world! The little stream that makes its way down to Seneca Lake has forced itself through a very narrow gorge with spectacular results. There are steep sided cliffs, dripping with water, deep gullies frothing with the rush of the stream, waterfalls roaring constantly. There is a good, solid trail that follows the stream up the gorge, across bridges, under (and through!) cliffs and behind waterfalls. The gorge is so narrow in places that it's hard to see the sky, but it also opens up so that the woods on either side can be seen right to rim. We walked the whole of the trail from the car park at the lake end to the car park a mile or so (and an awful lot of steps) up the valley. Of course, after all that exertion, an ice cream and a bar of chocolate were the only natural restoratives. 

We were able to take a rim trail back that ran gently down to where the car had been left, realising that it was also a much drier route that the before, which was handy.


So then it was back across the countryside to the camp site, where we did camping type things, like trying out the new propane powered barbecue and listening to the other campers getting drunk; the outdoor life really is not for the faint hearted!


Day four was the day to head home so we hit the hay reasonably early in the hope of getting moving at a sensible time in the morning. Would that happen? Read on......