The Adirondacks

The Adirondacks, New York State

Every since Halifax, it has been humid and walking in humidity when you aren't used to it is hard work.

The wildlife refuge was in the Adirondacks, it’s a national park but not in the same sense as the others we have been to. There is no “entrance” to the park as such, just lots of signs showing you were the trailheads start. There are lots of lakes and small towns along the way. We moved from Au Sable down to Indian Lake. We couldn’t fit into any of the Forest campgrounds as we are too big but found a nice private RV place with lots of tree cover. It’s in the middle of nowhere, so not a place we could stay for very long. We could only get three nights as he had an Airstream convention coming in on the Thursday, so three nights it was.

all the walks we did were under the trees

We did three of the walks in the area. I had picked up an excellent brochure that listed all the walks and day hikes broken up by maps, then under headings of lakes, waterfalls, scenic views, historic sites etc. Sawyer Mountain was listed as the easiest summit walk in the area, 2.2 miles return, graded easy. It must have been the humidity because it felt a lot longer than 3½ kms. Easy, mmm, not according to the Canadian code. It was uphill, over rocks, tree roots. More like moderate to me. The glorious view we were to behold, was just okay. It took us an hour, so it probably was 2 miles.

I'm sure the views are better in Autumn

The following day we tried to find Castle Rock which said we would have a view of eight islands. But where was it? All the other trails had huge signs on the roadway. I had written the directions down on a piece of paper that had disappeared since I put it in the car. It turned out Lindsay was sitting on it. The girl in the service station, said turn right at the stop sign and take the first road on the left. Yep, did that. No trail. We gave up. On the way back to our campground we found another trail not listed, so decided to do that one as we had wasted enough time and it was past 12pm and we had no lunch and hadn’t brought any money. Stupidly I forgot to spray myself with insect spray and a fly buzzed my head all the way. The trail was actually quite nice, a few boardwalks to get us over the boggy bits, tree covered to stop us from getting sunburn and fairly flat – a nice change from yesterday. After 45 minutes Lindsay decided it was time to turn around, we figured an hour and a half in humidity was enough, about 3 miles.

The falls were a long way away. This is handheld with my P&S camera.

The priority on our last day was to fill up. The local gas station didn’t sell diesel and said the nearest place was 20 miles away, in the opposite direction to Castle Rock that we were going to try and find again. I had another walk on my list, a trail only three years old which goes to the highest waterfall in the area – Ok Slip Falls. The catch was that it was 6 miles return. Another couple were starting off at the same time as us and were planning on going all the way, an incentive for us to do the same. It was a fairly easy walk, boardwalks over the marshy areas and a few dry river beds to cross. We made it to the end.

It's good to get out in the forest even if it's very humid

Lots of organisms live here

Mr frog really blends into his environment

Rochester, NY

It’s time to change our truck tyres again and this time we are getting them through Costco. There are a number of advantages: free rotation, free tyre repair, free top up of nitrogen. Nitrogen is put in them for free too. It has larger molecules than air, which means the tyres don’t heat up as much and they last longer. We also put nitrogen in our air bags. Plus, there are plenty of Costco’s around the country. We ordered them online and chose a location on our way to Niagara Falls. The customer service person told us they only took a couple of days to get in but when we rang to check delivery, he said it could be between 5-10 days. Two days out they were in Maryland. Lindsay was doubtful, but I thought we had a good chance that they would arrive by Friday. We looked online and it said they had arrived. When we rang to organise fitting, they said 3pm Saturday. The only campground in the area was half an hour away, with a two night minimum and a $10 extra fee per night for not being local which took it to $100. We decided to put up with the heat and stayed in Walmart. We went into Costco that afternoon to see if they could be fitted them any earlier. Yes at 7pm. We could eat dinner and shop at the same time. Costco vegetables always seem to last longer than those from the supermarkets, especially their romaine lettuce and broccoli, pity we didn't realise we were about to do another border crossing and you can't take vegetables! Roast chickens were on sale for $4!

Campground:

Thornbush Acres RV Park, Indian Lake