Cayuga Lake State Park

Site 12E, Cayuga Lake State Park

I wasn't planning on there being a followup to the "Pickin' in the Pasture" pages so soon, but on the way home I passed Cayuga Lake State Park, and since it had been recommended to me by others, I decided to stay for a night.

I asked at the office for a site that would fit a 20' trailer, with electric (it is close to 90°F), and close to the bathroom - I need a shower.  I guess I forgot to ask for a site away from Route 89, one that was level, and if they would be mowing the lawn at the site.  If you look close at the site photo, you can see a car in the background.

In any case, I'm in site 12E, next to the bathroom.   Currently, the sound of the mower & weed eater drowns out the road noise!  As to level, the site is within 3" of the limit of the range of my power tongue jack front to back, but pretty good side to side.

I spent part of the day sitting outside, than finally turned on the AC & headed into the trailer when both the heat & biting flies got to me.  Dinner will be a Bubba burger & salad.

Until next time, which will probably be the Niagara Wine Escape rally in mid September.

The 19th Pickin' In The Pasture, Saturday, August 27, 2016

Boom!

A beautiful night - the pickers in the campground were playing until 3:30AM. Most of them were on the hill at the far end of the campground, so I did get some sleep!

The morning started off with drills by the Reynolds' Battery L. Lots of explanations of how things worked, what it was like, etc, along with the traditional firing.

After that the performances began. Photos at today's LakeshoreImages page.  I'll add more after tonight's performances.

Pickin' in the Pasture, Day 2

Goldwing Express

We had rain again off & on during the night & a bit in the morning, but skies cleared in time for the show. I had cracked the window over my head since the rain had stopped when I went to sleep.  I was dreaming about walking through the hallways of an abandoned school, and some kid kept spraying me with a squirt gun.  Woke up & it was the rain drops blowing through the window screen!  Anyhow, I made it through the night.

Five performances this afternoon with four of them that will be repeated after dinner. Another afternoon of great bluegrass music. A good sized audience - I took a couple of panoramas.

As usual, many more photos at Pickin' in the Pasture, Friday, August 26, 2016.  I'll add more after tonight's performances.

Pickin' in the Pasture, First Performances

The Spinney Brothers

We had some rain overnight and into the early morning, but it stopped in time for the 1:00 start of the day. Bill Knowlton of the Bluegrass Ramble Radio Show introduced each act, starting with Cap & Cady. Lots of great music over the afternoon. I took photos of each group as well as the individual members of the group. I'm not including the names of the individuals since I'd probably get them wrong. As a retired sound designer, I had to include a photo of the sound crew along with those of the performers. Check today's LakeshoreImages page for more.

The same bands are returning after the dinner break - I'll probably add some additional photos then. 

I did go back for some night time photos. Skipped the last group because it looked like rain was heading this way & I left the trailer windows open. So far it is holding off, but I didn't go back to the stage.

Pickin' in the Pasture

First Night Sunset

After spending 2 weeks on Nantucket Island visiting my brother, I drove home to Oswego, picked up the trailer & on the next day headed to Pickin' In The Pasture, a Bluegrass Festival in Lodi, NY. While the festival has been going on for years (this is the 19th), somehow I've missed hearing about it. Since it is only 60 miles from Oswego, and I enjoy Bluegrass, it seemed like a good idea.

Susan & Andy Alexander host the festival on their sheep farm. There is a space for camping in a section of the pasture along with fresh water, portajohns & dumpsters for trash. The price for the 4 day festival (including camping) is $80.00. While most of the campers are in RV's, there are a few tents as well. One other fiberglass egg - a Burro.

You get two site photos. You would think that I would pay attention to the direction of the sun when setting up in a field - It was important during the winter in Quartzsite, AZ. So, I pulled in, unhooked & set up, made a run to the nearest grocery store for some milk, and got back to realize that the sun was setting on the passenger side of the trailer, heading the refrigerator, and ducking entirely under the awning. So, using the excuse that I had to move the trailer anyway since I needed water, I set up again with the door facing East. It does give me a better view of the sunset from the larger rear window. The pasture is set up with a main road running the length of the area and smaller flagged "roads" that branch off the main drag. I'm set up on Earl's Way. While you are required to keep 10' between campers (NY Law) there is plenty of room to spread out for those that want to.

After setting up the second time, I walked around the camping area, talked with some of the staff, and took a few photos. I suspect there will be many more, but you can find today's at my first "Pickin' in the Pasture" page.

Home to Oswego

Early Morning Light at the Harbor

You know, 5:30AM is awfully early for us retired guys. I probably could have cut it to 6:00AM, but I have a habit of getting to important scheduled appointments 10 - 15 minutes early. The 6:30 ferry does not wait for anyone so I arrived even earlier - I was parked in line to board at 6:00. Loading started at 6:20. I still find it amazing to watch them load 4-5 full sized semis before they start loading the smaller trucks & cars. While I was first in Row 3, I was just about the last on the boat - 3 cars behind me. A longer wait than usual to get off the boat in Hyannis, and a slower drive out of the city since there was a ferry load of cars ahead of me - there are a couple of left turns at stop signs on busy streets that back up traffic.

An uneventful drive back to Oswego. I did get a call an hour into the drive from Dave - I left a rain jacket behind. There is always something. Hope the weather is dry for the concert!

One of the few good things about the early boat is the light over the harbor at 6:30AM - I like the color in the first photo. Be sure to look closely at the last photo of the Brant Point Lighthouse. Check out the "little" black boat in the background. I don't know the name or origin since it wasn't there when I did my harbor tour last week, but it sure is impressive!  Photos at today's LakeshoreImages page.

We must have had some serious rain in Oswego while I was gone. My rain gauge shows 4.85" and was at less than .5" when I left. The grass grew enough that I had to mow, something that I only did twice the entire summer.

I unpacked & repacked the truck & trailer - it is only 70 miles to the "Pickin in the Pasture" concert & the campground doesn't open until noon, so I have plenty of time to finish packing tomorrow morning. Like all my trips, I do some posting here assuming that there is cell coverage in Lodi at the campground.

Until then -

Still Here!

Nantucket Wind Blown Trees

I'm not sure if it is just having photographed Nantucket too many times or what, but I can't get myself out & shooting this trip. Almost a week has gone by without a new post. In any case, I have a few images from one of my morning walks. The fields belonging to the Nantucket Land Bank (property purchased & set aside with funds from a tax on new construction) almost look like African plains - I fully expect to see a pride of lions curled up under the trees! More photos at today's LakeshoreImages page.

We made a couple of trips to the transfer station. The excuse is to drop off the garbage & recyclables, but the real reason is a stop at the Take it or Leave it building. Since Nantucket is a rather small island, dealing with trash is a problem. The solution is an entire building that people drop off usable items rather than toss them in the dumpsters. My favorite section is the book area. A couple thousand books are dropped off every week during the summer - lat week I watched them arrive faster than I could look through them.

Just about any & every author - I end up with a shopping bag of books by my favorite authors, plus a few new reads. My brother David added to his collection of director's chairs & canning jars. I didn't attempt to look at the clothing tables. When I stopped by 4 days ago, they were empty - today the 100's of square footage of tables were piled 3' high. Everything that one picks up is something that doesn't have to go to the landfill or be carted off island, so one doesn't feel guilty about picking stuff up.

Other than the trips to the Stop & Shop grocery store & the dump, I haven't been doing much. A bit of reading, my daily walk/jog, and hanging around the house. I'm heading back to Oswego tomorrow morning on the 6:30AM boat. A pain to get up early enough to catch it, but it lets me arrive back in Oswego early enough to unload the truck in the daylight. This time it will be a short turn around - I'm heading out Wednesday with the trailer for a long weekend concert down in the Finger Lakes.

Not Much Happening

Don's Photo of the Seawolf

Not a lot happening, so not much in the way of posting. It has been much hotter & more humid than usual here in Nantucket (as well as back home in Oswego). I've cut back on the lengths of my jog/walk in the mornings, and tried to get out before the sun comes over the horizon.

On Friday we made our required visit to Sconset (actually Siasconset, but no one wants to say or type all that) & Tom Nevers. They are both about as far from Nantucket city as you can get & still be on the island. In fact, getting there is on the only road on the island that has a 45MPH speed limit. As usual, we stopped at the most expensive grocery store in existence for lunch. The only place I know that you can get a Turkey & Brie sub - $8.00 for a 1/2 sub, which is better than the $6.00 for a single scoop ice cream cone.

There used to be a navy base at Tom Nevers. Now it is the home of softball fields, a demolition derby to help compact cars before shipping them off the island, and JFK's cold war bunker, built as a refuge when he as president was visiting the island. Photos at today's LakeshoreImages page. After getting back to the house, we had the brisket that I brought from Oswego that David spent the entire day smoking.  He had some friends over and with all of us we only got through about 1/3rd of it.

Don & Anne went home on Saturday,catching the 9:45 boat. They saw the Seawolf on the rocks in the harbor. It is going to sit there until they get an off island salvage company to re float it.

We have been working on projects. The first was to replace the battery in David's weather station. He is not fond of heights, and it is on a mast sticking above the 2nd story roof peak. It takes most of a 40' extension ladder to get there. Should be good for another 2-3 years.

The next project was to add a receptacle for his trash pump. Ever since they raised Paradise Road (on the North side of David's property) the garden & back corner of the lot sometimes floods, particularly with Spring rains.  If it gets bad enough, it starts to creep into the basement. He added a pit with a trash pump to lower the flood, however the nearest receptacle was 150' away, a bit long for a couple of extension cords. Adding a receptacle to the corner of the house shortens the run to 50' or so. The biggest problem with any electrical work on the house is Dad's choice of GE breaker panels when he built the place. No GE breakers available on the island. Luckily, there was a spare 20 amp breaker already in the panel.

The next project was the shop in the garage. We needed to add three 240V outlets for some new power tools. I picked up some 20 amp, 240 breakers that were suppose to fit the panels, but didn't. So, we could only wire in 2 of them with what we had on hand. I'll send David another 20 amp breaker when I get back to the world. I'm glad David did the tough run - through a crawl space that was small & hot, and required some serious cutting of plywood that didn't need to be there. Dad did have some strange building habits! David probably lost 10 pounds making the run! Anyhow, there are now receptacles for all the shop tools and after adding a breaker, the dust collection system will be up & running.

Today's project was easier - add 4 florescent lamps & a new cord for the dust collector.

Dinner will be smoked ribs.

Off to Nantucket

An Expensive "Shack" to Rent

It has been 3 years since I've visited my brother Dave on Nantucket Island, so since I was back from trips to somewhere else, I decided this was a good time to go. I made ferry reservations back when I first got back to Oswego from my winter trip. As usual, the price of tickets & vehicle has gone up - $487.00 round trip for the driver & truck. At least the truck isn't 6" longer; that would have moved it up a class for more $.

For the first time in history, the Guido's were at the ferry before me. I joke, but I have a habit of leaving Oswego early enough so I often arrive in time to squeeze on an earlier boat. Don & Anne were coming from Vermont, so they had a shorter drive. We pilled their stuff on top of my stuff in the back of the truck & sat around for an hour waiting for the "Eagle". An uneventful ride across the 35 miles to the island, except for buying a soft pretzel that has around a pound of salt on it.

I have to admit we arrived on the island on the 9th, and I have put off posting anything until today. We really didn't do anything worth posting about, so I put things off. Actually, last night's dinner was worth a posting, but none of us thought to take photos.

My brother David made a wood fired pizza oven in the back yard, so we decided to make a from scratch pizza. I found pre made dough at the Stop & Shop, added some peppers, onions, mushrooms, sausage & pepperoni. We never gave the dough enough time to rise & get punched down, so it was a bit springy. On top of that, I'm not used to making a pizza that cooks in a 900°F pizza oven. The result was a pizza that was charred black on the bottom, done on the top, and had raw dough in the middle. I guess wood fired pizza needs to be thinner crust.

So, Don & I stood around picking at the top of the burned pizza while David went to find more dough so we could try again. According to David, the last people that made pizzas in his oven made smaller ones that were thin enough that they made 7 from one lump of dough. I did use a roller to thin out the crust on the next batch, and David, Anne & I each made our own version of a pie. David is the only one that made a round one - mine looked a bit like Nantucket Island & Anne's looked like a large amoeba.

By then the oven cooled down to around 500°F and the pies cooked OK. In the end we had a pretty good dinner, even left over piece that David had in the morning.

Today we decided we had to do the tourist bit & check out the boats at the town dock, do a little shopping, including a trip to the Nantucket Hospital Thrift Shop for books. While the trffic was havy as usual, we did manage to easily find parking spaces. I took a few photos at the docks & downtown:

Dinner tonight is going to be a pot roast, something that I think I still remember how to make...

Home, Oswego, NY

Thursday, August 4, 2016, Home, Oswego, NY - 121 Miles, 1309.1 Miles for the Trip

Don, Anne & I said our good byes this morning, with them heading to Binghamton & me to Oswego. A quiet ride along US 20 & US 5 and picking up NY 69 in Rome, NY to NY 104 & home. I got to Oswego early enough that I had time to order a brisket to take to Nantucket next week, and do my lunchtime swim at the Lee Hall pool.

It is hot in Oswego (as well as just about everywhere in upstate NY) so I just unpacked the essentials, and will do the rest tonight when it cools off. I have the weekend to unpack, then pack the truck for the trip to Nantucket on Tuesday.

A week before I left on this trip Time Warner informed me that I needed to switch my cable modem to a "newer & faster" version. I did, and it didn't seem any different. While I was gone, my son Kyle told me it was slower than dial up. I tried to use it today & I have to agree. It seems to randomly die. I couldn't even read mail for awhile, even pure text without images. I called the help desk, and it immediately started working while I was on the phone. Now it is taking 3 or 4 posting cycles (each tries for 90 seconds) to post this Dreamweaver page. I guess I'll haul the new modem to the office tomorrow, hoping I can get the old one back! It is no better here on blogger - it took over 3 minutes to get to the "new post" page...

No "Next Time". I'll be back on Tuesday with the Nantucket vacation! -

Glimmerglass State Park, Cooperstown, NY

The Oldest Covered Bridge in the US

Wednesday, August 3, 2016, Glimmerglass State Park, Cooperstown, NY - 147.3 Miles, 1188.1 Miles for the Trip

A relaxing drive from Vermont to NY, although Anne found a shortcut that only added 15 minutes to the trip. We also forgot that we had the GPS in both cars set to "no highways", which led us through the city of Troy, NY instead of taking a 5 minute section of I 87 that would have saved us an hour. In any case, we are here.

Abby Rodd, a former student & now Director of Production at Glimmerglass Opera met us at the campground. We did a visit to a display of her photographs, and after that, sat around the campsite talking. We are in sites 54 & 53, dry sites on grass that are in a field. While there are flush toilets & showers in the park, they are miles from our sites, although there are some portajohns a short walk away. Since each of us has a driver over 62, are NY state residents, & it is a weekday, there was no entry fee for the park. The camping fee was $14.25 per site.

The oldest covered bridge in the United States is here in the park - we hiked to it from the campground & took a few photos. The rest of today's photos are at today's LakeshoreImages page.

After hiking back through the woods to the campsite we sat around reading & doing nothing until dinner, which will be chicken, asparagus, and saffron rice.

Until next time -

Jamaica State Park, Jamaica, VT

Site 16, Jamaica State Park, VT

Tuesday, August 2, 2016, Jamaica State Park, Jamaica, VT - 122.3 Miles, 1040.8 Miles for the Trip

A bit longer than yesterday driving mostly on NH 112 (some sections were pretty rough) and some on US 4 to Jamaica, VT. We drove around the park & selected sites 16 & 17. I got the better part of the deal since I was behind Don & had to take 16. It is an almost level back in with lots of room and a wide entrance. I managed to stay hooked to the truck by backing on a pair of leggo blocks under the trailer wheels. Don got 17, a far less level site that required unhooking to get anywhere near level, with a narrower entrance. If you check the site photos, you will also notice that Don's site has no sun and lots of greenery. I have enough that the solar panels are cranking out 2 amps. Both are back in dry sites for $20.00 per night with a nearby bathroom with hot showers ($.50 for 5 minutes). The photo of Don & Anne's site is at today's LakeshoreImages page.

We passed the Vermont Country Store in Weston on the way to the campground. I've been getting their catalog once or twice a year for 20 years since I bought a hand cranked doorbell - the type that you spin a handle on the outside that goes through the door to the bell mounted inside, and is impossible to find anywhere else I looked. I needed the sound for a couple of shows, and it is a sound that is almost impossible to duplicate using any other type of bell. It is probably still in the sound effects cabinet at the college.

While I have 2 bars of AT&T at the site, there is no Verizon, even with the amp & external antenna.  There is a repeater for Verizon at the entrance station that covers a 50' circle around it, so I walked to it to post today's page.  I found a pretty good WiFi signal, so I used that rather than the Jetpack.

Dinner will be a garlic parmesan cheese sauce with meatballs & sausage on spaghetti with some fruit cups.



Until next time -

Lost River Valley Campground, North Woodstock, NH

Jackson Covered Bridge

Monday, August 1, 2016, Lost River Valley Campground, North Woodstock, NH - 95.5 Miles, 918.5 Miles for the Trip

We left Maine, and headed into New Hampshire. Much of the drive was on NH 16. We stopped in Jackson to photograph a covered bridge.

My suggestion is to avoid NH 16 if you are in a hurry, or frustrated by stop & go traffic. We didn't see any reason other than a couple of traffic lights, but it was a slow crawl through a couple of small towns. Eventually, we hit the Kancamagus Highway (NH 112) through the White Mountain National Forest, and the traffic cleared; a pretty drive, although hilly. There was light rain most of the drive, including while we set up the trailers in the site.

For anyone using the coordinates from the AllStays Camp & RV app to find the Lost River Valley Campground, they are off by a couple of miles - the campground is a couple miles west of the indicated location. Of course that might be because it is "lost". In any case, we are in a pair of fairly level, back in water & electric sites next to each other - 43 & 41 at $35.00 for the night.  Site photos and the sign for the Jackson Covered Bridge are at today's LakeshoreImages page.

While the rain has stopped, we will probably have a microwave cooked indoor meal because the sites are heavily shaded with trees that are still dripping enough that cooking outside wouldn't be much fun. Anne is putting together a shrimp & pasta dish.

Until next time -