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By Katrina Kane, on August 5th, 2008 Onward to Maine! Looking at the map, I could see the trip around Lake Champlain was going to be a pretty long one. Considering the extremely high cost of gas in New York, I found it more economical and time-saving to take the ferry across the lake rather than go around. Somewhat apprehensive about taking my trailer on the ferry, I knew I didn’t want to take the nearest ferry over to the heart of Burlington, VT. The landing drops you at a steep slope up to a very busy narrow street where I would have to manage a left turn to get to Route 2. OK, I chickened. 😛 I dropped down to the Essex ferry instead with a nice smooth flat end landing out in a rural area. Driving onboard was a little nerve wracking and Jesus didn’t seem to want to take the wheel either so I put my trust in the deck hands and my mirrors which all worked fine. Well, it was actually pretty cool.
 
I drove through Vermont quickly and on through New Hampshire. It’s not like they are all that big anyway. I got to see the White Mountains and went past various tourist traps I had heard of until I crossed into Maine and pulled into Bethel Outdoor Adventure and Campground in Bethel, Maine for the night. It’s a Passport America Park and seems to be pretty popular with the river enthusiasts. They provide canoes and kayaks as well as transport to the river. I might have stayed a while but it also was host to numerous enthusiastic mosquitos all day and night. I HATE mosquitos (acid rock, flower smells in soaps, barking dogs, etc.).
Continue reading Bangor – Bar Harbor – Acadia National Park, ME
By Katrina Kane, on July 20th, 2008 I got a hankering to see the Adirondack Mountains, Lake George, and Lake Champlain so up to the northern tip of New York I went. Again, despite calling twice to verify my aircard would work near Lake George, it didn’t work though there is a tiny signal there in some spots. Calls to all the nearby campgrounds that purported to have wifi yielded more “yes we have it if you sit by our office” nonsense. The C2C campground, Adirondack Adventure Resort, was very very nice with wonderful helpful staff but with no Internet I had to leave. Bummer. I was looking forward to seeing Lake George and the Great Escape Six Flags amusement park. It was not to be.
Rather than abandon that leg of the trip, I made some more calls farther north until I located Ausable River Campsites, a Passport America park in Keeseville, very close to Ausable Chasm, Lake Champlain, and Lake Placid. Woohoo! Solid gold strike! While they do have wifi throughout the park, after half an hour on it it turns to crap every time. I swear the 3rd party providers of it are throttling it to discourage any long use. Happily, my Sprint aircard worked there so I was in business. The park has a wonderful heated pool and lots of planned activities. I managed to get on the hayride and grab some ice cream at the social.
  
Continue reading Lake Placid – Lake Champlain – Adirondacks, NY
By Katrina Kane, on July 1st, 2008 While I am not a rabid baseball fan, I do very much like baseball and wanted to get 3 baseball fantasies satisfied on this trip. I accomplished the first already when I had a catch on the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. The next was to see The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. To be in the presence of The Great Bambino (Babe Ruth) and The Ironman (Lou Gehrig) would be awesome. I was also hoping the women in baseball would be there. I was not disappointed.
  
It has not been an easy part of my trip. I had hoped to stay at a Passport America campground just south of Cooperstown. After driving through buckets of rain, hail, and lightening to get there, I discovered that there is no aircard signal anywhere in the area. None. Zip. Zero. The park I had reservations at did have wifi but you have to sit outside their office to use it which is not terribly comfortable or useful for 9 hours a night while working. They have a repeater but it isn’t currently working. I stayed one night in a soft wet grassy area then had to seek out other arrangements. It’s a good thing I have a 4×4 truck to get out of there. Getting out of the wet grass and going up the steep dirt driveway back out to the road wasn’t easy.
I found another park with wifi all through it within a couple miles of Cooperstown and still affordable. Unfortunately, it also had no aircard signal and their wifi had gone down during the storm but they had not noticed until I pointed it out. After several hours of trying to get it back online with the installer out of the country and his on-call buddies not answering their phones, I had to move on again.
I finally ended up in Herkimer, NY in the Herkimer Diamond Mine Resort KOA. It is more expensive than the others but it does have full working wifi with plenty of repeaters as KOAs often do. It is right across the street from a diamond mine where you can try your hand at mining for a unique experience and it is next to a large creek where tubing is quite popular. I took advantage of their ice cream socials while I was there and wasn’t going to miss out on free s’mores at the campfire either. 🙂 The staff were friendly and two nice workampers invited me over to their campfire as well. I played a bit of bingo too.
  
Continue reading Cooperstown, NY – Baseball Hall of Fame
By Katrina Kane, on June 15th, 2008 I moved on to Waterloo, NY next to experience the Finger Lakes, Lake Ontario, Fort Sampson Training Center museums, and the National Women’s Rights Museum in Seneca Falls. Little did I know that this is also The Erie Canal Historic area so I hit a major homerun with this choice. Ha ha! I bet you thought I actually planned all these travels super well. Nope. I travel by whim and mood. 🙂
I stayed at Waterloo Harbor Campground. It is very small with only 22 sites but it has full utilities, was inexpensive as a Passport America park, very nice staff, a laundry room I sure needed, nice enough bathhouse, and a small connecting canal for resident boats. It is also in a great location for sightseeing. Not much of a view like camping at the state parks gets but who needs it when you are sightseeing and the state parks don’t have full utilities.
I hit up the Women’s Rights museum first. It was far more educational than I expected. I had no idea I was banned from the best colleges in the country (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton) the day I was born and on through high school solely because of my gender. I served my country just as well as any man while still not a full citizen. I knew I was not allowed to play Little League growing up and that I was required to wear a dress to school (I even got sent home once for wearing culottes, shorts with a skirt covering). Still, the museum was an eye opener.
Continue reading Waterloo, NY and the Erie Canal
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