HappyTrails

Quick update

We are in southwestern PA about 50 miles from Pittsburgh. We visited the Flight 93 Memorial yesterday. The crowds were gone and the sight is not completed but we must commend the project creators for a moving result. So many lives lost. The passengers and crew of Flight 93 are heroes.

Beautiful sights

This is a photo Jack took today in Western Pennsylvania. I'll post more about today's touring and add some photos. Jack took this one.

Champion, PA

We arrived at our planned park after a drive of about 250 miles. The drive was on major highways by design since we had no information about the local roads/red routes. This route added another 25 miles to our travel day but it was quite easy with much less traffic than usual.

The photo I added is a "comparison" of the flood levels now and in 1972 (hurricane Agnes). We drove past huge swells of water and we pray for all who are suffering losses in this storm situation.

Safe and happy trails!

Soggy!

We are still in North Central PA where we had a visit with my Dad. It was all great until the main event of Tropical storm Lee chose to pass right over us- for days and days of rain. The park we found here is Army Corps of Engineers so it's a good value and safe in the area wide flood watches. We hope to leave soon to make our expensive reservations (nonrefundable) to tour Falling Water.

Happy trails!

Into every ... Adventure... A little rain

We've been at Lake Hammond Army Corps of Engineers park near Mansfield, PA for the holiday weekend. We were fortunate to get an overflow space until the crowd left and then moved to a regular w&e site. This is a great place for visiting with my Dad. It's about ten miles from Wellsboro, PA on route 6. The town has an old time charm and the scenery is beautiful. We hope to spend more time here next visit.

We've had some heavy rain at times but fortunately nothing causing us to rush out of the way. I'll be happy seeing sun again in a week, hopefully. We are headed to Champion, PA for a few attractions and then we'll see what looks interesting in West Virginia-North Carolina... Just have to keep an eye on possible storms at this time of year. We were never at risk from Irene but that was just serendipity. Our plan had been to drive through the very region of New Hampshire and Vermont that was hit so badly by the hurricane. We made the right choice to take the interstate to Rochester, well out of Irene's path.

Happy Trails!

Happy Labor Day!!

Hammond Lake (Army Corps of Engineers) north central PA

We stopped here for two or three days because Tropical storm Lee will be passing through. It should be a few days of rain. If it lightens up a bit we'll continue along to Champion, PA and then on to West Virginia.

Finger Lakes Wine trail (NY 14)

(photos to be added)
We car toured part of the NY wine region, the Finger Lakes. We drove to the Eastern side of Seneca Lake and discovered some beautiful scenery and some decent wineries. The NY region isn't Napa...or Mendocino...but it is pretty. Rolling hills, lakeside views and working farms are all to be found.

First, we stopped at Anthony Road winery where Jack thought the white wines were "not bad". He decided the dry Reisling was his favorite. We then drove along the lake and enjoyed the views. Our next stop was a castle/hotel that sits right on Seneca Lake- lovely.

Jack found an interesting barn to photograph and I took a few snapshots of the wineries and gardens. Gracie and Clancy thought the huge lawn at Anthony Road was a great place to run around like crazy...on flexible-leads :)

Happy trails!

View of Keuka Lake from Esperanza Mansion

We are enjoying some relaxation at Keuka Lake state park. The Mansion is across the road. We'll leave Saturday fir a leisurely drive toward Champion, PA.

Link to 2005 post while in Finger Lakes

Here is the link to my journal post of visit to the Finger Lakes in 2005. Time sure dies zip by...

http://roadtraveler.typepad.com/happytrails/new_york_2005/

We'll be in the NY Finger Lakes

We roll on to Keuka (crooked) Lake about 75 miles from Henrietta today. We've been to this area in 2005 and thought we would like visiting a state campground there when we returned. This is a little different than we had planned, thanks Irene, but as we have said before - we can be flexible. If ever there is a time to be flexible it's during tropical storm season.

Happy Trails!

After Irene

We are safely parked at the Henrietta, NY Elks Lodge near Rochester. The folks in the lodge have been friendly and generous to us here as Elks always are to RVers who stop at the lodges. Thanks so much Elks.

We have watched the storm pass and see that our decisions were good to remain safe. (The park in Cooperstown, NY, where we planned to go is submerged in flood water and no one can leave...or arrive). So, we're happy to be here.

Our next travel will be through north central PA and western Pa. We are also watching tropical storm potential and will slowly head southward.

The photo of the final track estimate of Irene is included as a part of our 2011 journal :). Good-bye Irene!

Happy trails

Henrietta, NY Elks Lodge

Fast Ferry - Rochester Wiki

This is the sad story of the mishandling of state and city funds. When we were here in 2005 the ferry was running and we considered taking it.

http://rocwiki.org/Fast_Ferry

Henrietta, NY

Our port in the storm

Our choice to go to this Elks lodge has been a good one so far. We could have a power connection but we don't need it. The temperatures are moderate here just south east of the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls. Our solar panels are doing their job and we are doing well with the batteries.

Did I mention the Elks Lodge has an active bar? A few minutes after we arrived this beer delivery guy showed up to stock the lodge. Well, now we're all set!

We've been to this area before in our early full time days and enjoyed the Eastman Museum and other attractions. I posted about that time in the Finger Lakes area.

We are still watching Irene but it looks like we may be far enough out of it's path that we will only see a little rain...

We have been in the Carolinas several times and were on The Outer banks last year. We pray everyone is safe. We've stayed for extended time in the DelMar peninsula, Virginia Beach and other coastal areas. And, of course we've been in Cape May and the S Jersey and north jersey area as recently as this year. The casual attitude we have seen is surprising but then most people are worrying about the economy, jobs and other matters. The weather may not be top priority until it's arrived :(

Sent from my iPhone

Irene!!!

Well...it was tough but we're risk averse and Irene is nasty so we made the decision to leave Bar Harbor...in a hurry! As many know a hurricane is very difficult to anticipate. Yes, there are models but a hurricane can fool us all. So we made a decision based upon our best information with some backup contingencies in mind.
Our travel plan before Irene was to leave Maine and head to upstate NY. The original track had Irene going east along the coastline into Maine. We took off a week earlier than we had planned and thought we would shoot for Cooperstown, NY. We stopped at a service plaza after driving 450 miles in one day. That is twice the miles we choose to go in a day but we felt like we were fleeing something that could be very serious. We checked the track updates and learned that the direction of Irene had moved west a bit. That indicated that our new destination could be in the path if the track maintained. It also had us second guessing our decision to move from Maine :) - for a minute. First, we were already on the road. Second, hurricanes are unpredictable so we just had to go with our gut feelings. Ultimately, we decided to head further west in NY. We are now in Henrietta, NY watching Irene's track carefully.

We don't have much touring for the past two days but we'll check out some nearby attractions as we wait for the end of this storm. We will then go back to our original plan to visit the Baseball Hall of fame and one of Frank Lloyd Wright's designed properties as we head slowly south for winter.

We hope everyone in Irene's path will heed warnings and stay safe.

Happy trails!

Main-ly Delights

We car toured Bass Harbor and found a small campground we might like in the future. The nice folks told us about a local cafe, Main-ly Delights, where we had lunch.

About Sargentville, Maine

My previous post said we were pointed to Sargentville, Maine yesterday. As often happens we became distracted by our coming upon Brooklin before we got to Sargentville, another 6 miles down the road. We did drive the distance and it was a lovely drive through a much less tourist traveled section of Downeast Maine. The town if Sargentville is small but it didn't draw us to explore like Brooklin. We'll be continuing through that area again on our way to Deer Isle. More to come.

One note of interest to RV's. We usually see at least one campground in our car exploring. We didn't see one Campground or RV park in this area.

Sent from my iPhone

Brooklin, Maine

Yesterday we took a drive with the destination, Sargentville, Maine, in mind. Driving through the traffic in Ellsworth is no fun but we gritted our teeth and headed out. It was a perfect Maine day, sunny but cool and no humidity. Did I mention our Boston Terriers went along? They love a car trip.

The first interesting town/village we passed through was Blue Hill. Art galleries and a couple of cafes were the main attraction in this cute place. Our destination was another thirty miles so we kept going.

As we drove through a curve in the road we entered a tiny place named Brooklin. It's not a typo, no "y" in the name. The very small community was having a small farmers market. Jack jumped out and immediately found an artisan bread guy selling his goods. What a find! We were just lamenting that fresh baked baguettes or levain just isn't available in New England. So, munching on this tasty treat, we ambled on.

While chatting with the locals we discovered that a very highly regarded boat builder calls Brooklin home. This is a photo I filched from the Brooklin Boat Yard webpage. We spent a couple hours at the boat yard and harbor taking photos.

Further exploring helped us determine that another day destination is going to be Deer Isle. Can't wait to check that out soon.

Hazy (grainy) view from Cadilac Mountain

We are still in Bar Harbor until the end of August. We had a visit with my brother and his wife which was a fun family get together. We'll start our travel south in September, stopping at Falling Water in western PA and continuing through W.VA, VA, GA and into Florida in late September.