BigWeather's Blog

Note: I am writing this nearly two years later, I meant to come back to this and never did.

Woke up early and drove the long, fairly boring trip down I-95 and US-64 to home.  Pretty uneventful, including a lunch at Subway in Virginia if I recall correctly.  All in all a great trip.  We really enjoyed Ottawa and Quebec City, Niagara not as much because it is so touristy (but still a must see if you are in the area).  Fun Spot was memorable as was Fort Ticonderoga and getting to share Indian Lake and the Young’s cabin with the kids was very special.  My only regret was being sick but, looking back on four years of fantastic trips in the fall of 2013 I’ve got to say that we were pretty darn lucky that that was the worst to happen to us.

Eastern Canada Trip final route, July 2011

Route for August 7, 2011

Note: I am writing this nearly two years later, I meant to come back to this and never did.

We awoke and drove a short ways to the New York Renaissance Faire.  In the parking lot there was a pickup truck with New York rear plates and a Confederate flag for the front plate.  Oooookay.  Kinda odd.  The location itself was permanent similar to North Carolina’s near Charlotte and consisted of a lake and some other pretty neat areas.  Honestly, though, we favored the North Carolina faire.  Don’t know why, maybe it is because it is what we are used to.  Saw an act that used to show up in North Carolina, Dextre Tripp, and despite putting on a decent show he seemed pretty bitter about the North Carolina faire — I guess that is why he doesn’t show anymore.  Also I wasn’t feeling great and we were all sort of at odds — the end of the long vacations can get that way, sadly.

Entrance to the New York faire

Lake at the NY faire

One of the NY faire's lanes

Small mucky pond at the NY faire

The Blue Boar, a refreshment stand at the NY faire

Spooky lake at the NY faire

Reflections in the lake at the NY faire

NY faire jousting grounds

Actors on stage at the NY faire

We left mid-afternoon and headed through pretty northern New Jersey before hitting the New Jersey Turnpike on our way to our room in Northeast, Maryland.

Route for August 6, 2011

Slept a bit better last night, apparently the *quil worked.  I was still feeling pretty bad, however, and didn’t roll out of bed until late morning.  Had some Poptarts out on the deck for breakfast and set out on a walk with Genetta and Addison down to the lake, by the lagoon and a guide boat, and then towards Super Point in search of some fungus.

Another view of the deck at Gray Rock

"The Cove" at the swimming hole, Indian Lake

Adirondack guide boat

At least I think it is fungus — I’ll just roll with that.  Anyhow, it grows on the trees and has a hard brownish exterior on the top but a soft white exterior on the bottom.  Using a branch, pencil, or some other stylus you can draw on the white side and once it dries it lasts a long time.  Like, at least 100 years.  Our cabin has several from 1909 all the way through to today, all perfectly readable.  It is a tradition to etch out a fungus and leave it on the mantle to mark the visit.

Fungus on the tree

Fungus from early Gray Rock, 1909, in the back, with newer ones in the front

Anyhow, we found some fungus — it wasn’t huge but it would do nicely.  We headed back to camp and showed the fungus to the Gotts, at which point I dropped it — on its good side.  Grrrr…   Took it back to the deck and wiped off the dirt.  I decided to use the scratches obtained from dropping it as the basis for a birch tree (my favorite type of tree, they just look so cool!) and got to work on it with a small twig.  Once the design and the text was finished all four of us signed it.  I then placed it on the mantle next to the one Michelle and I made on our last visit in 1994.

The finished fungus for our trip

My favorite type of tree, the birch

After a quick lunch Michelle and I decided it was probably best to wrap up Indian Lake a day earlier than planned.  I just wasn’t feeling well at all and getting back to North Carolina Sunday rather than Monday would get me to the doctor a day earlier.  We had also originally intended to see some historical sites in Philadelphia on Sunday (staying in Philly both Saturday and Sunday night) and scrapped that for a quicker visit to the New York Renaissance Faire in extreme southern New York on Saturday (meaning a shorter drive — only three hours — Friday evening and we could drive to Maryland for Saturday night, making for a more reasonable drive Sunday home).  Not what I had hoped would happen when planning the trip but sometimes you just have to roll with it I guess…

Having decided to leave we had some work to do!  First ran to the dump (or, more precisely, the transfer station) and dropped off what little garbage we had generated.  On return to camp we finished up packing, did sweeping, made sure everything was off, that sort of thing.  Definitely a sad moment, as always, leaving Gray Rock.

Jerry's Farm, snapped leaving Camp Sabael

We drove a bit to Warrensburg where we had to get some gas.  A guy noticed that our right front tire was rapidly going flat.  Ugh!  Finished fueling and inquired about where we could get that fixed as the gas station we were at did not have a garage / repair facility.  We were pointed a block down the street to the Getty station where the owner was moving all of his equipment and stack of tires for sale into the garage, locking up for the weekend.  Despite it being 5:30p (half an hour after closing) the guy stuck around and fixed it (turned out to be a minor puncture) and all for only $10+tax.  We were grateful and tipped him on the side — despite having AAA as backup it still could have been an annoying situation and we were lucky to avoid it.

Got some sweet tea and a quick snack at McDonalds and hit I-87, eventually stopping at a travel plaza and eating Roy Rogers for a proper dinner.  Well, “proper”, at least.  Oddly, we heard Rush’s “Fly by Night”, a song I rarely hear down here, two times during that drive.

I was starting to feel even worse as we pulled in to our hotel room at Fort Montgomery near West Point.  Man, there were some confusing roundabouts and such getting there!  The kids played DS, Michelle watched some LotR:The Two Towers, and I started to try and catch up on the blog now that we were back in a place with electricity.

Route for August 5, 2011