Uncharted water: New York State and a storm

Before I start this post I need to comment on a conversation we had the other day. As usual, Phil and Chris were berating me about writing blog posts and my alcohol consumption. I'm kind of used to this theme now, and my skin is thicker than it used to be...however, let me remind everyone that I am a bear. Twice already this fall we've been in snow and I want to...need to be...hibernating. It is what bears do...just let me curl up in a warm place with a few bottles of red and I'll be good for a few months.

Aside from hibernating, we visited New York State after driving over the border from near Niagara Falls in Canada. We went to the Finger Lakes region, where we camped in a National Forest. This campground welcomes horses, as evident from the many hitching posts and a corral present.

Many hiking trails weave through the forest and around the lakes and ponds here in the Finger Lakes region.

We had a gorgeous, sunny fall day to explore the park.

We surprised this grumpy turtle trying to sunbathe along a raised section of the trail. He snapped at us as we tried to get around him.

The region has what is written up in a British Airways magazine as "one of the ten most scenic drives in the world". We had to see...and it was a pretty drive, but there were so many pretty drives in the area and some had better views than the road specifically suggested by BA.

Plenty of vinyards along the way too...why aren't we stopping??

Amish and/or Mennonites live in the area and this sign was directly in front of the truck stop where we fueled up. An interesting contrast in cultures.

There is our little RV lined up with all the trucks. Fuel was relatively expensive in New York...it was about US$4.40 per gallon. Glad we aren't paying Perth prices.

A big storm was forecast to hit the east coast. We decided to turn North and visit Montreal and Quebec (as I mentioned in the Quebec blog). On the way to Montreal we drove out to Cape Vincent, a little town on the St Lawrence mostly devoted to tourism. It is well past the tourist season now, so facilities were fairly limited but we found a nice pub open for dinner.

This is Tibbetts Point Lighthouse a little ways down the road from the town.

They build many of these pretty stone cottages up here.

It wasn't Friday when we were here...I wonder how early you need to get in before this place closes.

One of the nice things about out of season travel is the available parking! No one complains where you park and when were stopped at the pub and asked about parking, they just said, "who is going to give you a ticket?"

We try hard to avoid this scenario.

Along the St Lawrence, in the 1000 Islands region, we stopped at a State Park and went for another hike. We were hoping to camp here, but sadly, the camping is over for the season.

Eventually we worked our way up to Canada again. We watched the storm hit the east coast on a TV in a bar one night and someone told us where to catch the train and where to get off in Montreal. The next day our intrepid travellers found the train and made their way about 29 km to Montreal, changed trains and got off at St Catherine. It wasn't quite where we expected, plus it was really rainy.