Week 2 – Penn Yan to North Lake

WEEK 2

Last week we left off at the Climbing Bines Hop farm and Brewery and the first week we were really testing the waters, week two is about getting in the groove.

Day 10 Mon 04/17

This morning we were a bit slow moving…I don’t remember the last time I had that many pints, but it was good family fun for all at the brewery.  We tried again to find a place to fill the propane without any luck.  We still had ¼ tank so it should have lasted a few more days.  We hiked Watkins Glen State Park South Rim Trail with Cooper and the gorge was spectacular…it reminded us of the Antelope Canyon out west if it were flooded with water in some parts but with what looked like slate rocks.  For tonight’s home, we parked at another Harvest Host winery Chateau LaFayette Reneau on the east side of Seneca lake.  I opted for a 3-hour “nap” in the RV with Cooper while John was the patron in the tasting room (somebody must earn the night’s RV parking spot).  The sunset was beautiful over the vineyard and across the lake.  The weather brought a cold night, the low was 35…so it was a sleeping bag under the down comforter night for sure.

Day 11 Tues 04/18

It was hot shower Tuesday in the RV, which was also the first successful attempt!  The mission for the day was get some laundry done and find a place for filling the water tank and dump our grey water tank.  In the quest to find these facilities, we happened to find an amazing waterfall park based on a friend’s recommendation (Thanks Scott Ulrich) and a failed search attempt for water and dumping station. We explored Taughannock Falls State Park and hiked the Gorge Trail with Cooper.  After the hike, we went to Trumansburg for our first laundry mat day.  Laundry was more expensive than we thought…almost $11 (someone had to splurge on the $4.50 washer for the dog blanket) and our budget for the month is $30.  We grabbed lunch at a local shop and ate while the laundry was spinning.  For dinner, we checked out a local pizza shop that we were told people travel from Ithaca for, so we grabbed a pie to-go.  The day’s journey ended at our Harvest Host parking spot at Buttonwood Grove Winery on Lake Cayuga right next to their Scottish Highland Cow Melody.  We spent some time photographing Melody and Cooper totally tried his luck as a rodeo clown by busting through the cows electrified fence and almost went nose to nose with the old gal but John pulled him back through the fence…he did get a good shock but not sure he learned from it… 

Day 12 Wed 04/19

The morning started with rain, so we stayed until about mid-day at the winery.  After lunch, we headed South to try and get our water tank filled at Sned Family Campground…they were the only place open and explained that there was a $10 fee and that we needed to run the pump for a while to get out the sediment from it not being used over the winter.  We filled up and were on our way, next stop Ehrhart Propane, a local outfit we saw off the road near Trumansburg the day before to see Corky about our “faulty” fill valve.  By all accounts this seemed like the most promising so far.  When we arrived Corky had us pull into the service bay to take a look at the tank…Corky had been working there for 25 years so he knew just what was going on with the fill valve and explained to John that if it was broken he legally could not replace it per the manufacturer, but luckily he also knew how to fill it and showed John how to do it too…so it wasn’t broken after all, we just needed someone who knew what they were doing and Corky was our man…now John just needs to convince everyone else that the propane spilling out of the valve is normal and a relief mechanism… 6 gallons of propane later we were fat and happy and on our way.  Many more hot showers and furnace heat in our future.  We needed to restock on groceries, then we set off to find our free camping spot in the Finger Lakes National Forest off a recommendation from a friend (Thanks again Scott Ulrich) in the area.  It was a rainy muddy day up in the forest so we snuggled with the animals, read, and caught up with family.  John cooked a chicken sausage kale potato soup, which was perfect for the weather.  

Day 13 Thurs 04/20

We woke up to dense fog and as we made our way out of the mud roads of the forest it seemed the whole area was socked in too.  We descended into the valley towards Ithaca and went to check out the Cornell campus.  We must have arrived just in time for switching classes because all the students were walking about campus and we found ourselves a few dead ends before John was able to maneuver our rig to some parking on the edge of campus.  Based on a recommendation from an old colleague who went to Cornell we checkout out the Dairy Bar for ice cream (Kerry Whitehead…that ice cream was the bomb!) and explored the campus.  It was beautiful and thawing out from winter it seemed.  The campus was a nice mix of old and new buildings and we were immediately able to pick out the architecture building from the modern addition and architectural models filling the windows.  We spent some time hanging out in the Arts and Sciences Quad and were serenaded by the bell tower with Star Wars and other random tunes.  The art museum was impressive for a college too.  We were stopped by many students wanting to pet Cooper because they missed their doogy…we told Cooper he was on his college visits as we fit right in with all the families touring for the day.  After our college tour, we went to drop off our food scraps at the Tompkins County waste and recycling center.  Up until this point I was a bit discouraged as I had been composting at home for almost two years and was wondering how we would be able to manage our waste on the road.  Even recycling was not readily available so far.  This place was awesome, it was one of about 10 facilities in Ithaca that collected food scraps for Cayuga Compost near Trumansburg. It even had a FOG (Fat Oil Grease) deposit and they were giving away free compost bags.  I was surprised how excited I was about this discovery (the ratio of my excitement to John’s was off the chart)!  Unfortunately, all the parks near Ithaca were not open so we ended up staying our first night at Wally World (aka Walmart, aka concrete jungle) parking lot so we went to check in with the manager and get a good spot by the light poles for a chance that we might be able to get some artificial solar power through the night.  We weren’t the only RV in the lot, another family was already there in their Cruise America rig.  Tonight, we were meeting our friend Scott Ulrich (our Ithaca fixer) who is a professor at Ithaca college for dinner and drinks at the Ithaca Beer Company.  It was pouring by now so we hung out sharing stories about adventures and enjoying the food and craft beer.  He also gave some tips for our next stops in the Adirondacks and White Mountains ahead and he ended up treating us for dinner!  After dinner, we snuggled in for a long night of torrential downpour…all night long. 

Day 14 Fri 04/21

John woke up at 3am to wet sheets on his side of the bed but luckily the rain had stopped.  We think we have water wicking in from the window sills.  By now we were settling in to some sort of routine…one of us ventures out of the warm bed to flip on the heater and feed the animals, then coffee and breakfast while waiting for the water heater to kick in, shower and get ready for the day ahead and clean up and do a walk around the RV before hitting the road.  This morning I got a phone call from one of the community organizations I had reached out to earlier to see if we were still available to volunteer for the morning!  The organization was called Loaves and Fishes, and provides meals and advocacy services to the community 5 days a week co-located in the St John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Ithaca.  The name of the organization embodies how they can do much with so little like the Bible story of Jesus feeding thousands from just one loaf of bread and a few fish. Mark 6: 30-44; Mathew 15: 32-38 and all are welcome regardless of beliefs or circumstances inspired by verses in Mathew 25 “The king will say, Come and inherit the kingdom…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…truly I say to you, as you did unto the least of my brethren, you did unto me.”  John and I worked alongside the regular volunteers in the kitchen prepping and serving the final meal of the week using up all the left-over food and making a nutritious meal.  The organization feeds 120-250 people 5 days a week and works from a $350,000 budget a year.  After volunteering we stocked up on local groceries from Greenstar Co-op market on Buffalo Street and then drove to our next Harvest Host destination near Courtland at Trinity Valley Dairy.  Most of the farms in this part of New York appeared to be dairy farms.  We showed up at the dairy farm store and met our host for the evening.  Turns out we were their first guest as they signed up 6 months ago.  It is a family affair at Trinity Valley as it is a 5^th generation dairy farm.  We stocked up on goodies at the store and were given the special chocolate milk to try…so delicious, for real!  We explored the farm and met all the beautiful ladies and their babies.  Cooper had to hang out in the RV after his behavior with the Highland Cow a couple nights ago.  That night we were invited to watch them process and bottle the milk at 9 pm…I’m sure after they put the kids to bed.  We were told donuts and coffee start at 5 am so I am not sure how much sleep dairy farmers get. 

Day 15 Sat 04/22

Earth Day!  This morning the bakery was buzzing as they started making Saturday donuts and other goodies for the Plow Day bake sale.  Plow day is a vintage tractor show off, bake sale, and BBQ chicken lunch at the family’s church down the road in East Homer.  We were invited in for buttermilk donuts and coffee in the bakery and chatted a bit with the bakers and family about our adventure.  After breakfast, we took Cooper for a hike on the family’s property up a hill along a “crick” (some might know it as a creek like us) through some pastures.  After our hike, we decided to check out Plow Day and grab some BBQ chicken for lunch before we hit the road again.  There were about 10 antique tractors plowing the field next to the church…this was one of the first fields that had been plowed in the area as most others were still waking up from winter.  They had a huge homemade grill fired up with probably 30 chickens going at once.  We got 2 half chickens to go, and when I say this was the best BBQ chicken we have ever tasted I mean it was seriously finger lickin good!  After lunch, our next stop was a Harvest Host spot in Burlington Flats called Rustic Ridge Winery.  This winery partnered with one of the wineries in the Finger Lakes area for their winemaker and the vineyard.  When we arrived, and figured out our best parking spot and leveled out the RV with multiple attempts I took another LONG nap…it seems that we are good about arriving to our destination and needing to level the RV when I am tired and cranky and way whiney…so a nap is a good way to get some alone time and for John to forget my temper tantrum.  After my nap, we tasted the wines in the crowded tasting room then decided to map out our next leg of the journey through the Adirondacks up to Lake Placid.  It was a cold gray day and it was going to be a cold night so we decided to sleep with the furnace on.  We were awoken around 4 am to a loud screeching sound from the furnace so we turned it off and John put it on his list of things to check out and fix next as it seemed we might need it for at least a couple of months. 

 

Day 16 Sun 04/23

We got on the road early today and drove towards the Adirondacks.  We made a pit stop at Lowes, one of several so far to get supplies to fix the furnace.  While we were in civilization we also stocked up on groceries.  Much to our surprise the random shopping center parking lot thankfully had a full bank of Tesla charging stations for our hyper efficient vehicle to fill up on electric juice…I kid…John has deemed the Tioga a flat out earth killer because he knows that it ruffles my feathers…we think we are getting 7-8 miles per gallon so far… we haven’t been able to fill up all the way yet so this is our best guess…the last time John went to fill up a few days ago, he found gas spilling out the top of the tank on to the ground… turned out to not be as big of a deal as initially thought, since we thought we had a huge hole or crack in our gas tank (another item to put on John’s need to fix list)…So…after we unsuccessfully tried to charge our very non electric gas guzzler we headed towards North Lake, our first stop in the Adirondacks.  John and I had taken a road trip up to Lake Placid Ironman a couple of years ago and vowed that we would come back for a longer visit in the area as it was so beautiful along all the lakes and mountains.  The night before I had found myself reading some blogs about spring hiking in mud season in the Adirondacks and further north and was convinced that we were not going to be seeing any mountain summits on this trip.  The temps can be sunny and 60 degrees at trail heads and at the summit several feet of snow and wind that could knock you off the mountain…John had found a site that located free DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) land in the area to park the RV so we picked one and decided to give it a go.  The road into the campsite was long, windy and even had snow piles still along the side from snow plows.  We finally arrived to this small mountain lake with several campsites tucked into a forest along the lake intermixed with private land.  Most of the campsite road was still closed for the season, so we only had a few sites to choose from but man did we pick a good one.  It was mostly level, had access to a privy, and it even had access to the lake for Cooper to enjoy.  We decided to stretch our legs and explore the closed access road with a pre-dinner hike, and about every ¼ mile there was a tree down across the road so that was a good reason for it to be closed.  The hike was very quiet as we had the place to ourselves again.  Dinner was smoky beef (from Trinity Valley store) tacos in the pressure cooker; one of our favorite recipes.  We topped the tacos with avocado tomato corn salsa, homemade pickled radishes, and some lime cilantro crema.  They were oh so delicious.  As the sun was setting the wind died down on the lake and it became a mirror…we wondered if when we are back home a year from now if we would remember every campsite we stayed at during our journey.  This one was special…it was beautiful and free.  

Two weeks on the road and we are still not sure that it has sunk in but we have decided that we have most everything we need with us and are content.  I’m not sure what we would do if John didn’t enjoy fixing things and wasn’t good at it too?!  I am convinced John can do anything but hopefully he doesn’t have to!

This map below indicates our route this week from Penn Yan, NY to North Lake NY.