Our 50th Wedding Anniversary

 

Sunday, August 29, 2021

Joe and I were married exactly 50 years ago today. We woke up and the first thing we discussed was not, "Happy Anniversary," but "Will you be long in the bathroom?" I guess that's what 50 years of marriage (or of anything!) does to people! We did go back to "Happy Anniversary" very quickly after that, however.

Our plans for the day were to be tourists in St. Louis--specifically, to visit the Gateway Arch National Park. I had purchased the complete ticket package yesterday, including a movie on the making of the Arch, a trip up to the top, and a boat ride on the river with narrated tour about the history of the city. We started out early for our 10:30a.m. boat ride. This RV Park, which has no beauty other than the beautiful night view of the Arch, makes up for that in convenience--it is truly less than 15 minutes from downtown, and it took us less than that to get to the levee, where we parked (at a steep angle) for the boat ride. 

The ride was an hour long, and was fun, especially when going downstream so that we had a breeze (there was no breeze going upstream.) The pilot narrated the whole time, identifying various buildings and explaining the history of things we were seeing. I was able to get one pretty good selfie of us before we docked, with the Arch in the background, so that will be serving as my memory of us on this auspicious day.

The cruise was over at 11:30, and it seemed too early to go to lunch. So we drove to Forest Park. It is huge, and we really didn't have enough time to do something like go to the zoo (and it was HOT again), but we stopped at the Jewel Box, an art deco glass building now used as a greenhouse and event space (weddings would be beautiful here.) We were the only ones in the building most of the time, and we didn't stay long. We did, however, note that it would be a good place for a wedding. So we went up to the front where the bride and groom would stand, and we "renewed our vows" for 50 more years. 

Inside the Jewel Box

By then it was 12:30, and we decided we'd better go eat. We had decided to have lunch at Pappy's Smokehouse, our most favorite BBQ place in the world. We never go past St. Louis without stopping at Pappy's, even if it just means getting off the interstate, stopping to eat, and then continuing on. We got there very quickly, which was lucky, because there was a long line. There is ALWAYS a long line, but this time it moved much more slowly because they had cut down on the number of diners. Masking was required, and I saw that they were spraying and wiping down tables rigorously after each group left. So we waited about 20 minutes before being seated, but the service is always very fast. And man, was the food incredible as always! Especially compared to Central BBQ in Memphis, there was NO comparison. Joe had a rack of ribs again, and even I loved them! I had the chicken as I always do. When I say that the green bean side dish was the first thing I finished--that's how good THEY were! Joe was moaning in ecstasy with his ribs, while i was moaning over my roasted corn on the cob side dish. All in all, we were just in heaven from the food.

Mural Dedicated to the Builders of the Arch

We had to run afterwards, though-- it was already about 2:10, and we had a 3pm ticket to see the movie, "Building the Dream", about building the Arch. But first we had to run back to the RV to walk Cassie. We rushed back home, jumped out, had 15 minutes to walk the dog, and then jumped back into the Jeep and drove to our parking garage, which was about a 10 minute walk from the Arch. We were really hustling, and managed to make it into our seats for the movie at 2:56pm.  

The movie was so impressive! It seems miraculous that this Arch could be built, when you see all the details that went into it. We were both just amazed. It was so impressive. After the movie, we stopped in the big waiting area where the trams to the top of the Arch leave from (it is a big space behind the Museum.) Joe wanted something to drink, so he got soda, and then we went to the gift shop to pick up my National Park pin for my collection, and a few other things. Then he rested while I looked at one corner of the adjacent museum.

St. Louis, looking West

At 4:30, we went to the tram line. They are being very Covid conscious throughout the National Park building/museum, and they kept us far apart and sorted us into the tram cars--each family group had a car to themselves. They also strictly limited us to 10 minutes, so they could transport people on schedule and so it would not be so crowded at the top of the Arch. The tour guide was very entertaining as we waited, and we got to see a cute little video "describing" some of the important events and people from the 1960s (when the Arch was built)-- everything from the Beatles to the Women's Movement to MLK's "Free at Last!" and the moon landing, Walter Cronkite and The Graduate, Woodstock and JFK. So that was entertaining, and then they sorted us out again to get into the little claustrophobic cars that take you up to the top of the Arch.

Looking East Across the River to Illinois

Needless to say, the views up there were spectacular. I'd forgotten my good camera in the car, but the zoom on my phone camera allowed me to see our RV all the way across the river. The entire view was pretty clear and I'm sure we were seeing for miles and miles. Looking down at the city was amazing as well. The 10 minutes passed all too quickly! Then down we went again.

There were quite a few steps involved, though, both getting to the trams and at the top of the Arch, and it really wore Joe out. So he decided to rest a bit, while I looked at the Museum. I thought it was very well done, blending both the history of the city of St. Louis and its importance as the "Gateway to the West," with the history of the country as a whole. There were exhibits on the importance of the Louisiana Purchase, and the subsequent "winning" (or stealing) of the West. And finally, there was a large section on Eero Saarinen and the contest for a design for a monument to stand on the shore of the Mississippi River, to represent all the history and the importance of the city. There were descriptions of how the Arch was designed and how it was built. I found all of it very interesting. And as we walked away, it was really hard not to take more photos of it!

At the Top of the Arch

At about 6:30, we walked back to our car in the parking deck (getting it out just before 7:00, when our ticket ran out.) We'd had a big discussion while sitting in the building--what to do about dinner. Neither of us were starved after our huge lunch at Pappy's, but I wanted *something*, specifically, a St. Louis specialty--toasted ravioli. After looking up restaurants making the best toasted ravioli, we found that most of them were closed today. In the end, we looked for a combination of pizza (St. Louis also has its own style of pizza) and ravioli, and settled on Imo's Pizza, which was not too far away.

Description of Treaties with Indians, All Broken

Visions of "Manifest Destiny" to Settle the West

St. Louis as Mercantile Center for Westward-Bound Carvans

So for dinner we had a small pizza with "the works" (the suggestion of the guy at the counter) and a portion of toasted ravioli. The latter was scrumptious! As for the former, I told Joey before we ate that it was important to take it on its own merits, not compare to NJ pizza. St. Louis pizza is made with an almost crack-like crust, very very VERY thing (half of a "thin crust" pizza at home.) We decided that although it was good, it was much more like a "loaded nacho" plate at home that like a pizza. Also, i thought the cheese tasted like velveeta--but Joey looked it up, and it was a blend of cheddar, swiss, and provolone. All in all, I would certainly not order "the works" again, but it was tasty. We brought about half of it home (we brought half my chicken from lunch home also, so we have LOTS of leftovers for the next few days.)

It was hard not to take photos of the Arch as we walked away

And then, we came back to the RV again. It has been a super-long day, but I think we made it memorable. I wanted something to remember our anniversary by, and this was a lot of fun. And Cassie was just fine in the RV with the air conditioning all day, so having this full-hookup campsite was worth it for the peace of mind. Altogether, I think our stay here was very successful. But... I am not as young as I used to be (I've been married 50 years!!!) and I am tired.

Heading West on our 48th Anniversary

2018-08-29

Not much to write about today— we got out of our campsite at 11:15 this morning, after cleaning up and hooking up the Jeep. We had some difficulty with Cassie—she simply refused to get into the RV. She gets this cow-like look on her face, with her head held down and looking up at us at the same time, simply refusing to go up the stairs. We finally tied her up to a tree while we hooked up the Jeep, and then it was a battle of authority and she caved and got in the RV.

We drove south and then west in the Black Hills, and stopped for lunch at the parking lot in Jewel Cave National Monument. We did the exact same thing last year! After that, we drove into Wyoming, and everything went smoothly until we found ourselves in one of those construction zones where you have to wait for the flag an and the pilot car. The wait was about 20 minutes, and then we followed with a long line of cars as the pilot car led us about 5 miles going 20 or so miles/hour, back and forth through the construction and new pavement. That backed our time line up by about an hour.

The Road Ahead in Wyoming

I almost forgot— there was one thing that was really cool about today’s drive— we saw ANTELOPE at the side of the road! Here we are out west, driving through the prairie grazing land. And suddenly, there were these deer-like animals, and then I realized, they were antelope! We’ve never seen that before. Joey took the photos on his camera, because I was driving, and he hasn’t sent them to me. So I’ll have to add them later. But it was very cool.

After much discussion, we decided to splurge on a site tonight at an RV “resort” in Casper, Wyoming. After 3 nights with no electricity, our house batteries were very drained, and we couldn’t even charge our phones overnight because we didn’t want to risk draining them further. We also were essentially out of water (luckily the drinking water pump was adjacent to our site, so we were filling old water jugs with water for the past day) and we needed to dump our waste tanks. The electricity was the deciding factor, though. So we are at an expensive (for us) campground, but we are happily using up a LOT of electricity. In addition, Joe spent some time playing with our television access via our new antenna and laptop, and as I type this, I am watching the Minnesota/South Dakota State game on FS1. This makes me SO happy because, if our internet connection is good tomorrow, we will be able to watch the MSU game, which is also on FS1. So we’ve splurged for tomorrow as well, to make sure we are in a campground which has full hookups for our laptop etc.

Today was our 48th anniversary. We’ve spent a lot of anniversaries on the road! Once I remember one in Wisconsin, where we had a problem with Mo all afternoon. About 4 years ago (I think), we were in East Lansing for our anniversary. And there have been a lot of others. Today was very nice— nothing to stand out about our drive, but our campground is next to the North Platte River, and after we got here, we sat in a swing in the grass by the river, watching it flow and feeling relaxed and mellow. And that is just a fine ending to a fine day, as far as I am concerned.

A Great 47th Anniversary

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2018

Today was our 47th anniversary, and I say a day which starts with a hot shower and includes a stop at the World's Largest Truck Stop just HAS to be great! And that describes our day.

We started the morning in our beautiful park--after rain during the night, the temperature was down in the low 70s and the humidity was all gone. The park's shower house actually had HOT water.  And I was thrilled, because Joe gave me a beautiful bracelet--he bought it in the gift shop at the Elephant Museum in Lincoln a couple of days ago, and surprised me! So we started the day feeling just great.

We knew we were basically "just driving" today, but a look at the map showed us that we were going to go right past the Amana Colonies, which we had visited back in 2007. We bought a really cute lawn thingie which we still love. So we decided to stop there and go back to the same shop. We drove about 45 minutes to Amana, then parked and walked to the shop--which was exactly where I remembered it, even after 11 years! And we bought another lawn thingie this time too.

Then we had some lunch and got back on the road again. As I drove, I saw a billboard which reminded me that we were going to pass the World's Largest Truck Stop, the I-80 Truck Stop at exit 284 in Iowa. It was about 4pm when we got there, and of course we had to stop. We were not in the mood for the truck museum adjacent to the truck stop, but we loved the enormous building with its vintage filling station just outside the door, and it's unashamed celebration of the truck driving life.

The I-80 Truck Stop has been described as "Disneyland for truckers." It has all the things a regular truck stop has, but much more of it-- food (8 restaurants), souvenirs, gifts, CDs, DVDs, and books on tape, etc. It also has a huge department for aftermarket upgrades on everything from horns to lights to hubcaps and tire nut covers. There is also a chiropractor, a dentist, a laundromat, a barber, a movie theater, and a library, as well as the usual TV lounge, showers, and of course restrooms. Outside there's a truck wash and a dog wash too . 

Joe found windshield wipers, which we still needed to replace, and we both had something to drink before we went back to our RV (we did not wash the dog!) And after that, it was back to driving. Soon after that stop, we crossed the Mississippi into Illinois. We stopped at the Visitor's Center and overlook just on the Illinois side, but it was closed "indefinitely", the sign said. So we used our wifi and apps, and determined that about an hour down the road was a likely-sounding campground.

And that is where we are tonight-- at Condit's Ranch. It appears to be a multi-purpose kind of place-- it is HUGE, and has a lot of "seasonal" RVs parked here, as well as people like us passing through. There seem to be several houses on the property, and I suspect that these barns near us are not unique. We are adjacent to a cornfield which is also owned by the same people (and the corn, by the way, is taller than Joe and I! There is a LOT of corn being grown in this country, that is for SURE.)  The grounds are very spread out, though, so it seems quite uncrowded, and the trees make it seem like a gigantic park. Definitely a good choice for a stopover for tonight.

And that was our day!

A Spectacular Anniversary

August 29, 2015

Panoramic View from Molas Pass

Today was Joe’s and my 44^th wedding anniversary—the years sure do fly by! Last year, we spent our anniversary driving from Ohio to Michigan and celebrating at the first Michigan State football game of the season that night. This year, we drove on an All-American Road from Cortez to Ouray, Colorado. We have driven on some spectacular roads—my two favorites are the Bear Tooth Highway from Montana to Yellowstone National park, and the TiogaPass into Yosemite. But the Red Mountain Pass is right up there with them, emphasis on “UP there", at 11,018 feet.

I woke up this morning twice—once  at about 5:30, and after I read for a little while, I fell back asleep until about 8:00. I puttered around a little bit, called my mother, and made plans for the day. We decided not to linger in Cortez—we were here in 2007 on our first cross-country RV trip, and had both a great time and several intense adventures. So instead I followed up on some research I had done in advance by calling the 4J+1+1 RV Park (what a name, right?) in Ouray, to see if they could accommodate us tonight. It turned out that they had a space for us, by the river, so I gave the lady my credit card number, realizing that the way we dawdle, we might not make it by 5:00 as she suggested.

After that, we packed up and left Sundance RV Park. Our first stop was literally across the street at the Colorado Visitor Center, where we picked up a bunch of brochures covering our plans for the next few days in Colorado. I also discussed our route with them—there are two routes north to Ouray. Together they, plus a couple of other roads, form a “loop” which are the San Juan Skyway.  The thing is, route 550, which includes a section called the “Million Dollar Highway”, is reputed to be full of very narrow roads with tight twists and turns (no guardrails!), whereas the other route, while also very beautiful, is “easier” to drive. The lady at our RV park had told me that she literally could not drive that particular stretch, between Silverton and Ouray, because of her fear of heights, and that she’d seen people show up at her park literally shaking. However, after due reflection—and remembering we got over the Beartooth Highway with Mo—Joe decided that there was no problem, and Route 550 was for us.

We came from that road down there!

So we set out east on US 160 . We passed the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park, and continued on until Durango. There we stopped for gas and then headed north on Route 550. It immediately began to climb, and I calmed my nerves by concentrating on taking photos. Several times I just closed my eyes as we went around the curves, even though Joe did a GREAT job driving. We went through two passes, both well over 10,000 feet high.

View of Coal Bank Pass, 10,640 feet

 The second one, the Molas Pass, was totally gorgeous! We actually spent an hour up there, with me taking photos and Joey and Cassie wandering in the meadow, before we had some lunch (it was already 3pm, we discovered in surprise.) 

 

Molas Pass meadow view

The road began to descend from the Molas Pass with some quite nerve-wracking twists and turns until we arrived in the town of Silverton. Silverton (and also Ouray) are both designated as National Historic Districts, being full of well-preserved Victorian architecture from the late 19^th century when both towns were connected with the discovery of silver and other precious metals, and the development of large-scale mining in the area. Since it was already getting a little bit late, I probably would have just passed Silverton, but we inadvertently took the turnoff to the main street, and it was so charming that we just had to stop. We parked our RV and wandered down the street, looking in windows and snapping photos (and Cassie was making friends with people and other dogs.) Besides all the cute little touristy shops in the vintage buildings, with the mountains for the backdrop, we came across a tiny park filled with various kinds of musical instruments, all played with mallets. There were hanging chimes, horizontal ones, and a fairly standard xylophone-type thing. It was all a kind of participatory art piece, and I heard someone saying that it was the work of a particular artist, who makes these musical installations for parks around the country.

The Road into Silverton

We didn’t do much to help the Silverton economy until Joe spotted a store which had batteries and data cards for cameras. I had been a little concerned that a couple of days ago, my batteries ran out. We thought we had plenty of AA batteries, but it turned out we didn’t! Luckily, we’d bought a gift and bought a small package of batteries to go with it, so I used those. I’ve had batteries on my shopping list since then. Then last night, just as we hit that extraordinary sunset, my data card read “full”. I took most of my sunset photos last night on my cell phone.  Here I was, about to begin driving the “Million Dollar Highway”, and God forbid my data card would be full! So I went in and bought both batteries and a new data card.

Joe and Cassie enjoy Silverton's Main Street

Harmony Park (Joe is playing at left)

As soon as we left Silverton, we began going up and up and UP again, and the roads became a lot more winding. We have gone over hairpin turns before, but you never really get used to them. The scenery, however, was as advertised—gorgeous. So I refused to look at the road too closely, and got out my camera. Wouldn’t you know it, the data card was FULL! I was SO VERY glad we’d picked up that second card!

It is only about 25 miles or so between Silverton and Ouray, and I probably took about 3-5 photos/mile. I’ll just put a bunch of them up here—there’s no point in trying to describe it! But when we got to the Red Mountain Pass, that is when all bets were off. As with last night, we’d timed it perfectly—it was about 5pm and the sun was low enough to bring out all the reds in the rock face. That, and the fact that the mountain was spectacular, ALMOST distracted me from the fact that the road was insanely twisted. I think we went down most of the way in 2^nd, if not in 1^st, gear. There were S turns and looping turns and hairpin turns and it was completely crazy—one set of turns had a 10 mph speed limit, it was so twisted and difficult to negotiate! Luckily, at the end of the worst set of twists, there was a big turnout for a scenic overlook, so Joe could park Samantha, get out, and really SEE the mountain. Man, it was incredible!

Red Mountain

From there we drove the rest of the way to Ouray—the road was beautiful, but not nearly as scary most of the rest of the way. There were two scenic overlooks that we could not stop at, because they were on the other side of the highway (where the cliff was dropping off) and on curves with double yellow lines. I didn’t envy the people on the other side of the road, however…. Near Ouray there was some construction and there was one section with a single lane, and there was NOTHING on the other side of the concrete barrier. The people going UP at that point were going to be looking down the side of a cliff the entire time.

We came down into Ouray at about 6pm, and found our campground without much difficulty. Ouray, like Silverton, is a lovely little Victorian town. The reason I chose this RV park, however, was entirely due to its location. It is right on the river; it is about two blocks from the center of town; and it is only a 5-10 minute walk to the town’s Hot Springs Pool, which is a public facility making the most of the fact that Ouray sits on natural hot springs. The Hot Springs Pool is like a big swim club with several pools of varying temperatures, plus a lap swimming section and a shallow section for young children. There’s also a massage facility right there, and a fitness center on the second floor of the bath house.

Ouray

Our campsite is RIGHT on the river, and I mean ON it. Or rather, OVER it—our bedroom (the back end of our RV) is hanging over the edge. Our neighbors are as close as they were last night (these town-located RV parks are always quite stingy on the size of the individual sites) but we should have the sound of the river lulling us to sleep all night.

Anyway, we ate an anniversary dinner of grilled lamb chops, grilled romaine lettuce with a yummy dressing, and mashed potatoes. Then we quickly washed up and walked to the Hot Springs Pool. The facility is very nice, but it was pretty noisy and crowded—I guess being Saturday night, that’s not so surprising. We enjoyed our soak very much—it was a great ending to a great day—but we had to agree that we preferred the hot springs that we went to in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, back in 2011. 

After about an hour, we got dressed again and walked slowly back to our campsite. Now I have about a million photos to go through to illustrate this blog! I’m hoping to sleep in tomorrow, though. We are waiting to hear from Ben and Miriam to finalize our plans for the next couple of days.

Meet-Up With Spartan Nation

August 29, 2014

Happy 43^rd Anniversary to us! We are off on our annual RV adventure, and have had a lot of fun already. We left Highland Park a little before noon yesterday with our first destination East Lansing, MI, and the Spartans’ football season opening game against Jacksonville (Alabama) State tonight. The weather was just glorious and we made great time on I-80 through Pennsylvania. We didn’t stop too much, but we did make one stop in the late afternoon and spent a little bit of time enjoying the fresh air and thick lawn.  Cassie was so happy, she was rolling in the grass, and Joe decided to join her. 

We stopped at about 8:00 at a Flying J to fill up our gas tank and make a quick dinner of hot dogs and broccoli, before continuing on. As usual when heading west, we like to get to Ohio before stopping for the night, and we made it to the first rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike at about 11:15 pm. We hooked up in their special RV parking area and went right to sleep—we’d been on the road for 12 hours.

This morning we woke up and didn’t rush, because we were only 4 hours from East Lansing. The parking lots for game parking did not open until 3:30, so we figured if we were early, we’d go browsing for MSU “stuff” in town. But as it happened, we made one quick stop soon after crossing into Michigan—we saw a sign for the Beef Jerkey Warehouse, and we could not resist THAT (Joe has a special love for beef jerky.) The place was wonderful, with several dozen kinds of beef jerky, plus pork, venison, and a few other types I don’t even remember. They gave us a taste of anything we were interested in, and we walked out with over a pound of beef jerky at about ½ the price it usually costs in those small packages you find in gas station convenience stores (they sell it by the pound.)

We got to East Lansing at 2:30. Sure enough, they would not let us into the parking lot, so we used the hour to fill up the gas tank (the gas was $.30/gallon more in Michigan than in Pennsylvania—ouch!) and have some late lunch. Then we came back to the parking lot. It is a wonderful tailgating experience, I have to say, except we feel very “left out” because we don’t have any MSU decals, flags, lawn chairs, blow-up Sparty figures, tablecloths, or bean-bag gameswith green and white Spartan insignia on them. One guy across from us has a huge flat-screen TV set up under his canopy; I wonder if he’s going to the game at all! Anyway, now that we can expect to tailgate at an MSU game at least once/year (vs. Maryland or vs. Rutgers), we have got some serious shopping to do, LOL!  Seriously, there is an old RV at least 25 years old near us; the lady who owns it says it is basically a “rolling potty” and they only use it for tailgating—it is white with green stripes, decals everywhere, and “SpartyMobile” painted on the front overhang. I don’t think we want to go THAT far, but I appreciate the sentiment.

 The football game starts at 7:30, so we still have more than 2 hours to hang out. Joe is napping while I blog; then we’ll through a steak on our grill and have some dinner. There is a shuttle bus which stops right outside our parking lot to take us to the stadium, which is a good thing, because we are at least a mile away. The campus has gotten even larger since we left here 41 (!) years ago. The amount of suburban spread makes us remember how the area all around us used to be countryside with farm houses; now it’s filled with super-ugly apartments and the usual fast food restaurants. Joey points out that the population of the world has more than doubled in the time since we graduated. Really, it’s a little bit scary.

I am happy to discover that there is a campus-wide wifi system. I told them I am an “affiliated” guest—I figured that for a $40 parking lot, I have just affiliated! I hope it works for my blog upload. Meanwhile—GO SPARTANS!!!!!! 

Anniversary #42--Still Paddling Together

Thursday, August 29, 2013

We have had a really wonderful and memorable anniversary today! We woke up to haze and wondered whether it would really be kayaking weather, but it was all burned off by mid-morning. We went directly to Locks 2&3 of the Seneca-Cayuga Canal. We were the only ones there besides the lockmaster. We pumped up our kayak and dropped it into Van Cleef Lake right in front of the locks. We paddled a little bit, then called up the Lockmaster on my cell phone and said, “Drop us down, please!” There is a 49-foot difference between the height of the lake and the canal below.

Our view of the lock gates--Samantha is in the background

Soon enough, the doors of the lock slowly opened and we paddled into Lock #3. We used a bungee cord to tie the kayak against the wall so we wouldn’t drift around inside the lock while the water level went down. It took about 10 minutes or so—we watched the walls go higher and higher above us. It is a much different feeling in a kayak than it was in the boat in Lockport—we are really just sitting on the surface of the water. It was very cool!

Joe taking the bungee off the rope after we dropped down

We head toward the open doors--another boat is waiting to take our place in the opposite direction

When the lock opened, we saw that there was a boat in Lock #2. He very slowly moved in next to us as we paddled past him, and we switched places. Then we tied up again, and were lowered down to the level of the canal. The doors opened again and out we paddled, past yet another boat and some folks fishing on the side of the canal just past the lock. More paddling, and we were completely alone on the canal—there was just nature on either side. One more boat did pass us going toward the locks, and we moved out of its way and waited for it to go by. Then we kept going downstream. We found a stream flowing into the lock and went in to explore it a little bit, and we saw a huge bird (I think it was a heron) which flew over the water and landed in a tree, posing for me so I could take its photo. It was SO QUIET out there, and we spent a lot of time just floating there drinking in the solitude. Totally lovely!

We finally went back to the lock, and had to wait a bit before the doors opened—when we called, the Lockmaster told us he had a boat coming toward him on the other side, and he was going to drop that boat down to meet us. Sure enough, the gates finally opened, we paddled in (such a cool feeling to paddle into the lock!) and when we got up to the next level, there was a largish boat coming toward us. Again we passed each other carefully before we finished our rise back up to the lake level. Then we paddled back to the dock and pulled ourselves and our kayak up onto it. Wow! What an experience!!

We were hungry after that (it was 1:30 pm) and also Joe had to make a few phone calls. So it wasn’t until around 3pm that we started driving. We really had no idea where we were headed exactly, only “east” was pretty much it! So we got back on Route 20, the road which had taken us through the northern end of the long Finger Lakes. I looked for a campground that was about halfway to Caroga Lake, where we have reservations for Friday and Saturday night. On the way we stopped in Skaneateles, a charming town right on the northern tip if the lake of the same name, and enjoyed the waterfront a little bit. 

We drove on from there, now heading to Oneida Lake State Park. On the way we passed right by Chittenango State Park. I knew there was a nice waterfall there, so we pulled in. Sure enough, the waterfall was GORGEOUS. The park overlook was at the top, so we (including Roxy) hiked the quarter-mile down a steep path to see it from the bottom as well. It was really beautiful.

From there it was only 20 miles to Oneida Lake. There are only 48 campsites here, but we were so lucky—we got one just off the shore of the lake.  It was already after 7:00, and we sat on a bench at the lakeside watching the sun set. There was a lovely breeze and we just enjoyed the view and the sailboats in the distance until the sun completely disappeared. It was the perfect end to a very special and memorable anniversary day.

 

Our campsite. The lake is right beyond the trees.