Finishing off in New York

 Philly Cheese Steaks on Wednesday and Shrimp and Crab Boil Dinner on Friday, Should be good!

It had been pretty rainy and it didn’t stop either, most days had at least a shower. That didn’t stop us exploring some more before we finally broke free of the Rochester area and moved south to be in the Watkins Glen area.

The Glen at Watkins Glen

We had a little trouble finding somewhere to stay, with the schools out families were on vacation and most of the state parks were full. Commercial parks were full at weekends. Eventually we found a park called Gardner Hill CG just east of Elmira. It was a slightly run down older place with all grass surfaces but everything worked and $35 a night was good for the area. There were several very old and run down looking trailers to one side of the park but we felt comfortable there.

Elmira is close to several local attractions and museums which we had a week to visit.

Vintage Glider week at Harris Hill

My flying background has been mainly in gliders and a facility called Harris Hill was high on my bucket list. Widely acknowledged as the home of US gliding it had hosted the US gliding championship many times and is closely associated with the Schweizer Aircraft Company who have been the main builder of gliders in the US from the start. It is also home to the National Soaring Museum. Quite by chance it was a national vintage glider meeting while we were there and I took a LOT of pictures. We even got Barbara in a glider! (sort of).

The Intrepid Glider Pilot

A little way up the road is the town of Watkins Glen which for many years was the home of the US Formula 1 Grand Prix. Another bucket list item for me was to visit the track. We followed the State visitors guide which , for some strange reason, brought us not to the track but to the research library? With a little googling we arrived at the track but we were told that we could not look around.

Playing at being a racer at "The Glen"

We must have looked disappointed so the guard looked at us and said “But”. Our interest peaked, “If you would like do do 3 laps of the track behind a pace car in your own car then join the line forming on the left”

Barbara did a good job of capturing the action

15 minutes later we rolled out on the track and got to look at the place from the racers point of view and had a blast playing at clipping apexes and running over curbs just like real racers but at 60mph instead of 200!!

Before Watkins Glen was known for racing it was known for its waterfalls. In the Glen itself cutting thru a narrow twisting gorge the river cuts thru 500’ of rock. It twists, turns and drops creating 20 small and large falls in about 1 mile.

Entrance to the Glen

There has been so much rain in the last couple of weeks making the water flow quite spectacular.

Rochester College

Mark Twains Study in the college grounds

 Elmira has a really beautiful College which contains exhibits of one of America’s best known authors, Mark Twain. Twain married a girl from Elmira and they spent many summers at her family’s farm and luxurious downtown mansion. Several of his books were written here and he is buried in the local cemetery.

Grave of Twain and his father in law

Corning is famous for the glassware produced there, Corningware. They have a Glass Museum that traces the making of glass back to the Egyptians and beyond. They also show the specialized glasses such as Pyrex and other used in industry and aerospace.

Tiffany Glass lamp

More airplanes (Whoopie for me) at the Wings of Eagles museum followed a chicken BBQ at the Elks lodge and were in turn followed by an aimless wander thru the lovely countryside taking pictures of barns.

Wings of Eagles Museum

Still on the lookout for more model airplane supplies I stumbled across and ad for balsa wood, pictures showed a couple of boxes with useful wood in them for $25 and I drove over to see them. They were part of an estate sale and I was pointed to the back of the garage and told everything on 3 shelves came with the wood for $25 so I hauled it back to the rig in the Edge.

Ahhh! Model airplane engines!!

It was quite a tight fit in the car and I had to fold the back seats down to get it all in. Much of it was N gauge model train stuff, engines, rail cars, scenery tracks, books. The model airplane stuff was in the usual Zerox paper boxes with lids on them.

Tiny N Gauge locomotives

As I opened one box after the next I discovered engines, some never used, fuel tanks, wheels, accessories of all kinds and more books. Looks like E-Bay is going to be busy soon!

Rolling stock too.

We moved west again to Balston Spa near Saratoga Springs which is famous for horse racing, more torrential rain came but we still managed to see Lake George and take a lunch cruise of the tour boat there.

Minnie Ha Ha tour boat

Lakeside luxury hotel

Then we finally left New York and moved into one of our favorite states, Vermont.

Windshield woes.

 After many miles and some small challenges we got to one of our “Target” destinations for this year, the Finger Lakes Region of New York.

The Finger Lakes

For our many American friends “upstate” New York is self apparent but for our UK friends some explanation may be helpful.

Most Europeans think of New York as a city, not realizing that there is a complete state of New York that stretches from the Atlantic Seaboard across to the Great Lakes. This other “New York” is further North and West of the city and so is referred to being “UP” State. The region is rural and very picturesque. In the far west of the state and just south of Lake Ontario are several long narrow lakes that align in rows north south. On a map they resemble fingers hanging down, hence the “Finger Lakes”.

The National Warplane Museum

WW1 Fokker DVI

This is a renown tourist area and one that we have never explored before now. That is why we arranged for the windshield repair on the RV to be done near Rochester, that being the major city in the North West corner of the Finger Lakes.

We decided to stay at the Elks Lodge in Brockport. Not far from Rochester and having the electric, water and dump facilities we would need if our stay turned into something longer than we had hoped, plus friendly people and a cozy bar!

The rig was pretty dirty after several rainy days and covered with bug guts after driving thru a couple of Cicada swarms. It took a couple of days to get it shiny again.

The windshield repair started turning into a melodrama. First the insurance company couldn't find a mobile company to come to us, then the first one wanted too much money to fit the new screen. Then they found a company and had the new screen delivered, only to find that when they opened the packing case that the new screen was broken already. Another replacement was shipped in but arrived too late to be installed before the 4th of July long weekend. 2 Days of forecast rain meant that it was another full week before it was scheduled to be installed.

Lobster salad sandwich at Captain Jacks.

We drove along the shores of Lake Erie and discovered Sodus Point, a quaint little town with 2 lighthouses and a great bar/restaurant called Captain Jacks who served Lobster and craft beer. To our delight the day after we visited we got a Face Book message from our friends Larry and Marilyn saying they were in Oswego a little further West and would we like to meet up for lunch somewhere, so we got to go back and enjoy Captain Jacks again! This little surprise get togethers are one of the best things about fulltiming.

Marilyn, Larry and Barbara 

The insurance company had another windshield shipped and we explored more of the area. The “Grand Canyon of the East” was nice and due to local drought it was strange to be able to see the base of the dam on both sides!

Letchworth SP and the dry dam

The Grand Canyon of the East

A longer trip was to Hammondsport which is the site where Glenn Curtiss grew up and became in turn a bicycle, motorcycle, aero engine and aircraft manufacturer. The museum covers the whole story and to my delight (But not Barbara’s) I spent most of the day happily wandering around.

Curtiss Motorcycle

Glen Curtiss invented the Sea Plane

Modern motorcycles too

The Curtiss Commando WW2 transport.

The weather turned extremely hot and humid for several days and we stayed firmly in air conditioned places.

At the Lodge they told us they had a celebration of life for one of the Elks Rider motorcycle group and we were invited to take part. There was a tremendous turn out of both motorcycles and trucks, both of which Steve had been involved with. He was obviously a well liked gentleman and his many friends and relations gave him a tremendous send off.

We also found the Genesee Country Museum in which historical buildings from across the county had been moved to the park and restored. A living history kind of place with demonstrations of crafts and industries appropriate to the age of the buildings. I was pleased to find that I wanted to take photographs with an intent to draw and paint next winter. I think I might be doing some paintings of barns and old buildings.

Genessee County Museum

The number of nice old barns around here is amazing and that started me thinking of painting some of them so we drove around taking hundreds of pictures.

Old Houses in Geneseo

Lots of old barns too

The windshield was supposed to be installed Thursday but after the long July 4th weekend the weather forecast had switched around with better weather on Tuesday and Wednesday but torrential rain on Thursday. We had made reservations in a B&B in Geneseo on Thursday night.

Temple Hill B&B

The Japanese Tea House

When we called the glass installer they checked their weather and suddenly said “Bring it over NOW!”. Barbara had just got in the shower! We hurriedly packed up and made it to the place by noon.

We called the B&B and they were happy to change the reservation so we moved in there that afternoon.

What a nice place Temple Hill B&B was and very accommodating. They blocked the room in for us thru Friday just in case we needed it.

The house was an 1850’s school house that had been converted to a private house around 1907. Thru the years it had a swimming pool added and 2 Japanese Tea Houses! A truly beautiful place, if you are looking for a place to stay south of Rochester, I would highly recommend this one.

New windshield at last!

On Wednesday around 11am the glass installer called and said we could pick it up so we slowly drove over there after checking out of the B&B and before long we were heading North about 15 miles to the Rochester Elks in Henrietta NY where we were booked in for Philly Cheese Steaks on Wednesday and Shrimp and Crab Boil Dinner on Friday, Should be good!