We spent time in 3 areas in New York.
Finger Lakes (Watkins Glen on Seneca Lake and Hammondsport on Keuka Lake) — The highlight was hiking the gorge in Watkins Glen along with checking out both towns and lakes. This area is predominately wine country and the towns’ focus was mainly on wine and food. It was still early in the season (1st week of June) for any water activities, which were plentiful. Scenery was rolling hills and towns were quaint. We had previously visited Cayuga Lake a couple years ago with Ithaca and Cornell University on it’s southern shore. The gorge at Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca were just as nice as the Watkins Glen gorge, without the cost of admission.
Cooperstown — The highlight was the beautiful stately buildings and residences in this town. It is a lovely town to just walk the neighborhoods and stroll past the beautiful lake the town sits on. This town also has beautiful stone churches. The landscaping was gorgeous in the area around the Baseball Hall of Fame. All the shops and restaurants around Main Street were of course baseball themed.
Adirondacks (or Dacks as called by the locals) — We based ourselves in the Lake George area, where along with Glen Falls to the south, has a lot to do, especially if with younger families. We checked out out Bolton Landing and Diamond Point further north. Both very small quaint main streets. The highlight was Lake Placid and the Olympic facilities. The mountains are more beautiful around Lake Placid and the town shops were more Olympic sports oriented. We enjoyed checking out all the lakeside real estate in these areas. The schools were still in session, so the season was not yet in full swing. June is also mosquito season, that was definitely in full swing here.
Vermont — Today, we passed through Vermont en route to a stop in New Hampshire for Father’s Day. Traveller’s always say: “stay off the highways, take the back roads, you’ll see more”. Well, we had our share of back roads, since Vermont’s highways seem to run north and south, not east and west like we needed, so we saw our fair share of back roads. We managed this route east west with a trucker’s atlas (necessary for our size rig) and two GPS units. We saw our share of farmer’s markets, honey and maple stands, and the small town living. Amazingly, once we finally got to a highway, the scenery improved and we had much better views of the mountains along the way. So for us, we preferred the highways for a view. Once you’ve seen one town, you’ve pretty much seen them all.
New Hampshire — We managed to get ourselves on some pretty dicey roads by trying to follow the truckers’ atlas preferred truckers’ routes in NH. I’m not impressed with that travel planning tool nor with the route markings in NH. This was also the first time Bill layed on the horn as cars tried cutting us off when their lane was ending. That is not normal for him at all. Amazing how people think a vehicle this size can be stopped on a dime. At a weight of about 18-19 tons, we need a little more stopping distance. Reminder, in NH, be sure to have at least 2 GPS units working, have your trucker’s atlas, a detailed state map, and then also be sure your iPhone google maps is active!
Written by Sandy
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