NBNC>NY June 2015

These past few weeks we have adjusted quickly to our new and improved square footage of the motor home.  The passage in the corridor is more sizeable, the turning radius in the galley is more generous, stretching out on the couch while watching tv is more comfortable.  

All in all, it is great to have our wheeled-home fastened, secured, and patched up.

 As we have settled on site 45 for the remaining of the summer, we have been fortunate to befriend several neighboring campers and have begun an ease of friendship where we share a harmony of common camping stories, evening firelight around the campfire, and the pursuit of happiness of food, drink and leisure activities for the weekends.

One Sunday excursion we biked along “Clinton’s Ditch”, the engineering phenomenon of the 19^th century.  Pedaling along the tow path of the Erie Canal you cannot help but conjure up visions tradesmen and families, whose lives evolved on floating houses, drifting along the waters from town to town.  As romanticized as it may sound, life on the canal was laden with difficult survival. A freight boat, most likely owned by a family, was probably captained by the father and the cooking for the family and crew overseen by the mother, while the children, if old enough, would walk alongside the mules on the towpath to keep their pace steady.  

Because of the transient nature of packet vessels, children were educated only as far as their parents’ knowledge. Other traffic on the canal included packet boats and passenger vessels, as well as tradesmen who encouraged travelers to contribute to the gambling crafts and their own personal coffers.  All along the canal on any given Saturday night there was sure to be altercations and the occasional canaller splashing into the canal after departing one of many taverns that lined the waterway. Ghost footprints from the 1820s spirited up through our bike spokes as we cycle over these tree-lined lanes while toads croak as our mile markers.  Our next excursion along the watered ditch we will plan with a picnic.

While the big rig rests under the shade of poplar trees our  Jeep becomes our mode of travel and we find ourselves dawdling through hamlets, villages and towns with no direction in mind, no clock to watch tick-tock, no plan to hold fast to.  One of the villages we are learning more about this year is Sylvan Beach and its surrounding region of Verona and Vienna, established as a strategic center during the French and Indian War. Oneida Lake is the centerpiece of Sylvan Beach and the territory was dominated by the Oneida Nation for thousands of years, as well as the nations of the Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga and Mohawk.

Because of its location on the white-sanded shore of Oneida Lake, Sylvan Beach became a popular resort community during the late 1800s and early 1900s; respectable boarding houses, well-appointed hotels, cottages and restaurants were established by the late 1890s. Boardwalks, vaudeville, a carnival-like area that offered thrilling (at that time) roller coaster and carousel rides, trapeze artists, daredevil female high divers to woo the crowds with their abandonment of propriety. Similar to so many prominent lakefront communities across America, Sylvan Beach declined after the beginning of the 1920s. Those prestigious community leaders who had vision of grandeur and could gaze along an avenue and catch a glimpse of their imagination achieved soon died and the visions died as well. Sylvan Beach has been the subject in the past decade of ghost hunters who feel pretty positive of the significant incidents of paranormal sightings.  Perhaps the ghostly vestiges of those canellers who stepped over the water’s edge on those late Saturday evenings.

Today, as we walk along the beach and the side roads, there are ghost whispers of what once was a fashionable setting. Although most of the original buildings became victims of fire and deterioration, some of the amusement park still stands, albeit crookedly. The beach draws crowds of weekend boaters who dock along the canal and enthusiasts joining the muscle car buffs as they display their pristine rides, and craftspeople sharing their wares on the green. A sleepy little town during the week, Sylvan Beach becomes the reminiscent nostalgia of lifestyle and reflection of the past.

In our neck of the woods there is no shortage of eateries that complement the amount of legal tender in your pocket.  On Thursday evenings we find ourselves deckside at Crazy Clam in Sylvan Beach to appreciate their clams ‘n cans and receiving the service of their great waitstaff.   We have also feasted at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, where we indulged on their award-winning bar-b-q and homemade corn bread. The atmosphere at Dinosaur is a blend of bikers, blue collar, and business suits. The unfortunate problem is parking on Syracuse surface streets; their parking meter system sucks! Just sayin’! 

We have dined at Cinderella’s, Eddie’s and the Pancake House, all in Sylvan Beach. Cinderella’s is the best outta three.  Farmer’s roadside stands are beginning to show up with fresh rhubarb and strawberries.  Cornfields for human consumption were being plowed and planted when we first arrived in May and look to be a few weeks shy of meeting the elephant’s eye on the fourth of July because of cool and wet weather, but we are looking forward to first harvest with a stick of butter and a pound of salt! And, of course, we stopped into Heid’s for a coney and Byrne Dairy chocolate milk.

beer du jour

wine du jour

Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sunday evenings we usually gather around a campfire and swap tall tales of camping woes and wonders and share the good, the bad and the ugly of camping.   And we all agree wholeheartedly, that camping is the best, no matter if tenting or glamping (glamorous camping) in a class A rig or 34’ fifth wheel. And we gather for "special" occasions - Saturdays- to share food and drink.

Life is Short - Enjoy the Ride

The weeks to come will be filled with more picnics, time with family and discovering, discovering, and more discovering

NBNC>NY 2015 May

May 7 -8

Appalachian Mountain Foothills (not my photo)

How many times have you read that message on your vehicle’s mirrors, “items appear closer than what they actually appear”? As we traveled highway 70 west out of New Bern to connect with I-795 to I-95 north for our summer trek to pitch our campsite near Sylvan Beach New York, the mirrors on our rig distanced the familiar landscape of our coastal Carolina as we mile  terrained toward the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain range. 

One of the great atlas’ we have is a topographic North Carolina map that details the back roads and country paths of our southern state. Snow Hill, on the Contentnea Creek, has as its city motto, “A Nice Place to Live”. This town, dating back to 1713 and only distancing a little over one square mile, is said to be a growing community, and its town name originates from the Tuscarora who lived on the creek and referred to the sandy banks of beach as snow. I would assume that if, and when, Snow Hill gets snow that their form of snow removal is to wait for July!

As we travel northbound on I-95, we are fortunate, from the riding height of our chairs, to see above and beyond the shrubbery and green space of the roadside, that we see acres and acres of solar farms. It seems that these massive farms, sans mooing, clucking and manure wagons, contribute substantially to local power grids.  Apple is planning to build a third solar farm near the center of the state to power its data center.  Sadly, it seems the family-owned farms seem to be vanishing along the countryside.  We have become so technologically advanced that the challenge of farming is becoming extinct. 

The rural landscape of the farm is becoming urbanized and its families are pushed into that urban lifestyle, as well because they cannot compete with large corporations and investment group.  Gone are the days of working hard planting and harvesting and then running to the pond or creek and wading in the clear waters while chasing tadpoles and eating peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches while waiting for the corn to grow.  

Nearing Roanoke Rapids and the Virginia state line in the distance we got a glimpse of Medoc mountain, that is a remnant of an Paleozoic age mountain range.

Traveling through the towering hardwood forests of Virginia and West Virginia light filters through branches overhead and the silence of the forest is broken only by bird songs.  The pastoral backdrop of Maryland and southern Pennsylvania with its valleys that resemble artichoke, asparagus, forest and moss green makes me want to hum the old folksong, “Shenandoah”. Okay, go ahead, hum a few bars and I’ll start you off with a few lines: O Shenandoah, I long to hear you; Away you rolling river; O Shenandoah, I long to hear you, Away, I’m bound away, ‘cross the wide Missouri”.  Keep reading as you hum this song for the next two weeks and wonder why it keeps replaying in your mind.  And I will apologize to you now.

After eleven hours on the road we pulled off to a Pennsylvania rest stop at exit 72 on I-81, north of Carlisle for the nite.

Friday, May 8

At 7:30 a.m. with the morning sun rising we hit the asphalt of I81 north. The mountain ranges along the Appalachian Trail are blanketed with eerie shrouds of early morning fog clouds.  As we near the coal region of Pennsylvania the forested mountainsides are budding into Spring; the reds of the trees remind me of bushel baskets of candied apples. As we drive past the fringes of metropolitan cities we a blessed to appreciate the forested valleys of rolling farmlands that reach up to the many mountaintop vistas.

Interstate 81 stays true to form, or should I say unformed, of being one of the roughest roads in the northeast to travel, whether you are going north or south.  In the motor home drawers were unlatched, cabinet doors swung open, cans of soup spilling onto the floor, and the rig was whimpering as it bounced over the frost heaves of the winter. 

We crossed the state line into New York about 10 a.m. and became absorbed in a lifetime of memories as we neared Syracuse and our homesite (until September) at Sylvan Beach. 

We leveled out on site 45 at Mayfair Campground, which is about five miles eastward from the touristy area of Sylvan Beach.  All plugged in, hydraulics down, time to push the button for the slide-outs. 

Wait, push the button again for the full-wall slide out. Okay, let’s not panic. Nope, nothing in the way, the other two slides out fine; push the button again. What the Hey!!!??? Slide inched out about to the length of our index finger and is stuck. Does not move in, does not move out. It acts like someone super-glues the upper right corner. Hello Camping World!!!!! 

Good Sam Club sends out a couple of good ol’ boys who seem to only know who to scratch their heads and wonder what they are supposed to do. In the meantime, phone calls placed to Tom Johnson where we bought the rig, and Camping World in Syracuse. Unfortunately, we are left to our own resources to come up with a plan. Fortunately, the RV tech who worked on our rig last year was staying a few sites from us and helped to narrow down the problem. After a few calls to Winnebago it seems that the mechanisms that control the slide have been sheared. An appointment for Camping World has been scheduled for Tuesday morning to diagnose and advise the plan. In the meantime, we are thankful that our journey was safe.

May 12

Today we took the rig to Camping World for an early morning appointment, and when we left at 3:15 in the afternoon, we returned to our campsite with our crippled motor home. Prognosis is hopeful. Complete mechanism has been ordered from Winnebago with the anticipated delivery in two weeks and repair to be completed within three days.  Although we are temporarily  inconvenienced we will make the best of it.