On the 27th, packed up from the Royal Mountain Campground, we headed further north to North Creek to ride rail bikes.
We stayed at The Alpine Lodge which (unless I somehow missed it) did not market itself as “staff less” when we booked, but learned that was the case when we arrived. Had we not arrived early enough to catch someone on the property and get the Wi-Fi password it would have been a problem since we had no cell service and our room access code was only provided via email at our check in time.
As much as I like not needing to interact with people, when I’m paying money for something I much prefer having someone to fix things as needed. Like “I need to get into my room and something’s wrong with the lock” (which didn’t happen) or “a kid in the room above is stomping around and jumping off the bed from midnight to 2 AM” (which did). I finally got up and found the room (since access to those rooms was from the opposite side of the building it wasn’t obvious which room it was) and asked them to please make it stop. I didn’t get shot. The noise settled down until about 6 I think.
Anyway, the reason we were there was for the rail bikes which we rode after eating lunch at the diner next to the hotel (and some ice cream down the street). A nice ride along the Hudson River. We were the only people in the group with the guides so at least when Heather freaked out about a mosquito that landed on her we weren’t disturbing anyone else.
I bought a frozen pizza from the grocery store across the street from our hotel to eat for dinner (the hotel room had an oven). That was convenient since there really wasn’t anything else around. Not sure there were any restaurants open for dinner within 20 miles.
I also discovered we were back in Drake’s Cakes territory and bought the first Funny Bones of the trip. Yay!
The 28th would take us across Lake Champlain and to the start of the family reunion.
On the 26th we continued our eastward journey to Herkimer where we took a cruise on the Erie Canal and through one of the modern locks.
From Herkimer we stopped in Little Falls. Little Falls, according to the book Wedding of the Waters (which I read before the trip), was the critical component of the Erie Canal’s existence because it is the location of a natural cut, caused by glacial activity, through the Appalachian mountain chain. Without it any canal route would have to manage an extremely challenging (possibly impossible at the time) elevation change over the ridge of the mountains.
Jess had found information suggesting there was a little boutique shopping area in the town. What we found appeared to be a deserted and dying little commercial district next to the canal. During the heyday of the canal it was a critical resupply and stabling area, but its time has passed.
From Little Falls our adventure continued north into the mountains to the Royal Mountain Campground. I managed to find a campground with a cabin that provided linens. We ate dinner at a sketchy little diner down the road and then returned to our cabin for a fire and s’mores. We settled in for the night and listened to a rainstorm come through and plip plop on the roof into the morning.
Upon leaving Niagara Falls we headed to Lockport, NY to see….the locks!
The Erie Canal needed to climb the same elevation change that Niagara Falls drops over. That climb happens at Lockport where a series of 5 double-locks (side-by-side for bi-directional traffic) raises and lowers canal traffic 60 feet.
One side of the bi-directional locks is still in mostly-original condition. The other side was replaced during one of the canal modernizations to have fewer locks of greater height and wider widths as enabled by new engineering and technology.
There’s a little museum in between the sides of the locks, but otherwise you can just kind of meander about the area. I apparently didn’t take any pictures of the locks, but Jess got a picture of the sculpture recreating a historic photo of lock workers.
We ate lunch at a little diner next to the locks before piling back in the car and continuing our drive to Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Park just north of Lake Canandaigua (one of the Finger Lakes).
This property was a summer home of a rich banker in New York City in the late 19th century. Fun to walk around. Some areas in desperate need of funding for restoration–especially the Roman Bath.
My favorite area was the “Rock Garden” which was a set of trails through a rocky area covered in mosses, ferns, and trees. It included secluded grottos, bridges, twists, and turns.
We drove along I-90 further east until deciding to stop. Upon which we discovered that while many hotels existed in the area, they were all, for unknown reasons, just about booked up for the night. So we paid an absurd amount for a basic double-queen room, but we at least got a room.
That evening found us back in Friendly’s territory and we got our first Friendly’s sundaes (and dinner) of the trip.
Our vacation this year was built around a Dickerson family reunion in Vermont at the end of July.
We flew to Pittsburgh, PA on July 22 and from there drove a rental car up through Erie to Niagara Falls.
We had been debating how to travel and considered taking the train to Chicago and then driving from there. But then I learned that sleeper-car prices on the train have more than doubled since we last did that and it wasn’t cheap to begin with. So that was now well into ridiculous territory. After debating a few other ideas and since Jess was just home from the hospital we decided to spend a lot less money than the train, but fly first class. Which, after accounting for paying extra to pick seats, check bags, get carry ons, and buy food, was not really an extravagant price difference. And it was a rather pleasant experience to have enough room to put your knees directly in front of you and move your arms without your elbows being in someone’s face.
Since our flight out left at 6:20 in the morning we got to have a not-terrible breakfast after takeoff. The meal descriptions only mentioned the entree and not all the sides. So along with eggs, hashbrowns, and sausage the meal came with yogurt, a croissant, a pain au chocolate, a fruit cup, and whatever you wanted to drink (even milk! which made Corinne very happy). Metal flatware, actual glasses, and a hot towel. Fancy. But not quite as enjoyable as train breakfast.
Spent the first night in middle-of-nowhere western Pennsylvania after we decided we didn’t want to drive any more.
The next day we drove up to Erie and toured the Presque Isle Lighthouse. We had lunch at Pizza Hut, which was actually quite good, before buying some groceries at Aldi and continuing our drive north.
We arrived in Niagara Falls that evening checked into the hotel, and then walked over to Canada. Mostly to do it. I had filed all the paperwork at work in case we wanted to do it and we had brought our passports and birth certificates so now we had to make it worth all the effort. So we went across the bridge, walked around a little, and had dinner before returning.
Oh, we managed to time our trip to leave Livermore while it was having one of the coolest summers in 40 years to visit New York which was having a heat wave. So it was hot and humid. Which most of the family is not used to. That was a little challenging, but we survived.
The next morning I went down to check out the hotel’s included breakfast. It was insanely mobbed and didn’t have much to begin with. So I walked across the street to the Culinary Institute of New York’s Patisserie which has fresh-baked goods every day. We had bagels for breakfast and various other pastries and treats during our visit. Great little spot that didn’t seem to be well known–it wasn’t busy anyway.
Our goals for the day were Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds. We walked down to the park and almost walked straight onto a boat for the Maid of the Mist, but about a dozen people in front of us a woman appeared to have broken her leg while boarding. So everything stopped while she was tended to. Took about 45 minutes to get her on her way to a hospital.
By that time the sun was starting to break through the clouds and it was getting hot. So we opted to leave the ponchos off during the boat ride. The mist felt great.
Pictures, of course, do not properly convey the scale. It’s a little overwhelming just how tall, how wide, how loud–how much water there is pouring over those cliffs.
After our boat ride we went back to the Culinary Institute of New York for lunch in their restaurant. Food is prepared by students but since they care about what they’re doing you get pretty-good food for a reasonable price.
After some lunch, rest, and drying off we headed over to Goat Island for the Cave of the Winds tour. We did wear the ponchos this time, but that didn’t help the gallons of water landing on our feet. It took a few days to get our shoes dried afterwards.
Then we walked down to the Horseshoe Falls observation point.
Back to the hotel for some more rest and drying off before dinner, but in the meantime I went on a fool’s errand looking for aloe vera. We had gotten a little sunburned in our walking around all day. I figured I could find a pharmacy near by catering to tourists, but I was wrong. I walked a few blocks to a 7-11 which was inexplicably closed. Tried a gas-station convenience store and a gift shop which were both unfruitful. So I gave up and got in the car and drove to a pharmacy.
It was during this excursion that I learned the area around Niagara Falls gets sketchy quickly once you get more than a few blocks from the State Park. Makes you wonder where all the tourism money is going.
Dinner was chicken strips at Church’s–also right outside our hotel.
In the morning, after more breakfast from the Patisserie, I walked back down to the Maid of the Mist gift shop to buy a magnet. Then we packed up and headed east to Lockport.
The girls had April 21st off of school, so I took the day off work and we made a daytrip out to Columbia. Corinne’s been learning about California’s gold-mining history this year so I thought she might enjoy Columbia since she doesn’t remember our previous trips.
On the way we stopped at Knights Ferry Recreation Area on the Stanislaus River–which we haven’t done before. Just went down and played at the shore of the river for a bit. Then looked at the bridge (which is closed pending repairs).
Then into Columbia for lunch, wandering about, bowling, candle dipping, and panning for gold.
