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| Looking at Samantha through a periscope |
Thursday, August 22, 2013
It’s amazing how we never do really get going too early,
even when I have a full day planned. We actually did wake up around 6:30 this
morning, but that was because we kept hearing a strange sound, sort of like a
horn honking every few seconds. I finally realized it was our awning rubbing
against something. The breeze had picked up overnight and it was flapping a
little bit somehow. So Joey went out and lowered it. When he came in he said it
was stuck somehow, so we left it for later and both of us fell back asleep.
So it was almost 8:30 before we woke up. We cleaned up as
fast as we could, and we spent about 20 minutes or so ascertaining the problem
with the awning, getting it un-stuck, and finishing packing up. Then we needed
to walk the dog, disconnect from the electrical hookup, dump the tanks, fill
the fresh water tank, and it was about 11:00 when we finally left the campsite
and drove over to the Sampson World War II Naval Veterans Memorial Museum.
The Sampson Naval Training Station was built immediately
after the bombing at Pearl Harbor, and is now a museum which tells the story of
what life was like for new naval recruits. We’d never realized, but the term
“boot camp” literally referred to the boot-like leggings which new soldiers
wore during basic training, until they graduated into full service. The museum
had displays of every facet of life, from what they wore, what they ate, how
they spent their free time, the equipment they trained with, etc. It was very
well done and we spent about an hour there. Some of my favorite things were the
article about the “real” Kilroy (of “Kilroy Was Here” fame—Kilroy was an
inspector of ships in the Boston shipyards, and he wrote his name to let other
inspectors know that the rivets in the ships had been counted—and hence paid for—already);
the menus (Joe of course loved those too), and the periscope which allowed us
to see a 360-degree view of the park from inside the museum building.
A bit before 12:30, we left the park and drove for 15
minutes or so up to Geneva, the town at the very northern end of Seneca Lake
(and the town where the Sampson boots went when they were on “liberty”.) We
stopped there at Seneca Lake State Park, at the edge of the lake itself, and
had some lunch. Then we went to Wegman’s for some groceries before heading
west. We stopped about 30 minutes later for gas, and to visit Abbott’s Custard,
the ice cream store with the highest “Yelp” ratings in the town of Canandaigua.
From there we drove another hour until we got to Letchworth State Park.
Letchworth is another very large park, and we are once again
up at the top of the mountain in the woods. The sites are not as huge as
Watkins Glen, but at least tonight, we have no one next to us on either side.
We picked up a bunch of brochures and have quite a few options of things we can
do for the next couple of days (we are staying here until Saturday.) We will
have to use Samantha to get around tomorrow—there is no way from here down to
the main part of the park where the waterfalls and other points of interest
are. There is also a Stone Tool
Craftsmen Show here this weekend—we passed it on our way to the campground.
There were teepees and tents of all kinds set up, and there are demonstrations
and crafts vendors there for the next 3 days. So we will definitely be stopping
by to check that out! It should be a nice few days. One downside of this site is that we seem to
have no wifi working. I’m hoping the connection will be better down the
mountain tomorrow so I can upload this blog then. Meanwhile, I am going back to
my book!
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