Our first foray into the world of post Labour Day mid week retirement camping. When we made our reservations, the site selection was almost absurd...so many to choose from. It was a bit strange heading out late on a Monday afternoon, but the feeling soon passed.
A quick overnight in Ogdensburg has become the norm when we head towards the Adirondacks, but it just simply a practical move. Gets all the logistics of crossing the border and groceries out of the way, enabling us to head out first thing in the morning.
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| a modern day hitching post |
Rolled into the state park, after a momentary bit of wandering about on some unfamiliar secondary roads. We followed the Hwy 481 exit sign to the park, but it soon became clear this was not our regular route and was much more convoluted. We were truly lost while standing at the counter of a lonely backroads corner store, asking the young woman to tell us just where in the hell we were.
Upon arrival, the park was pretty empty, perhaps four other trailers in our entire section. The parks people have been busy though, as signs of various improvements are everywhere. Always great to see parks being improved, although it’s a wonder we recognize the activity, based on that we see little of it happening within our Ontario parks. We are assuming that there is a mindset difference, where Ontario’s goal is that their parks be profit generating or a least revenue neutral (which is an unrealistic expectation), whereas NY state parks put a lot of money into their parks and must be obtaining the funds needed for maintenance and improvements through a wide range of government resources, including federal? We should really take the time to do research to see if our assumptions are correct, or not...
This trip was simply a little getaway to hike around the lakes and explore the park, then a little retail therapy in Syracuse. There is a Camping World on the other side of the city, and our compass always seems to lead us in that direction.
The weather was hot and humid, and the predictions of rain and thunderstorms never panned out. Although we always sit outside, our rarely used A/C unit got a workout, providing Barley a nice cool environment. It certainly is a huge benefit to have the A/C available when needed.
We had a couple of nice hikes around the lakes, the lakeside meander on the gravel path through the trees by the lake edges was a cooling respite from the sun. The lakes are a beautiful green colour, two special lakes with just the right combination of minerals and water layers.
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| these had me thinking of Lawren Harris, a painter in the Group of Seven |
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| a very solid stone building in the park |
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| the buoys just caught my eye |
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| hard to really capture the colour saturation of the water |
We found the water at the beach very low, based on the last time we were here, but a conversation with a gentleman soon helped us to rethink our memory. He walks here yearly, and has noticed no difference, if anything, he thinks that due to frequent rainfall it may be higher this year.
Our trek to Camping World yielded a couple of small goodies from the parts section, and climbing through a few of the trailer floor models confirmed to us yet again the quality of our little Alto, both in terms of materials and pride of workmanship. In a nutshell, the trailers we walked through were crap, crap, and more crap.
Relaxed outside in the evenings until well past dark. Barley was quite content in his screened large size shelter, we stayed out until he showed signs it was time for bed.
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| cozy and snug |
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| I did make my own... |
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| simple fare this trip |
We are very lucky that he is such a laid back camper. So that was pretty much our time at Green Lakes. For a nice little getaway, it sure is a great spot.
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