Another cloudless, beautiful day greeted us as we made preparations to get underway and head out toward Plattsburgh, NY, our destination for the evening. We had a good breakfast, made the bed, brought in the slide out, unhooked water and electric and removed the chocks. All is right with the world. However as we were driving out of the park Carol mentioned that she saw a dump station along the road in the park. Oh my gosh! I forgot to pump out, so we swung around and made use of the public dump station...my old mind leaks like a sieve.
We did get pumped out and cleaned out and all set for the next three days of boondocking. So off into the sunshine we went, stopping at a Tim Horton’s for coffee and then a Walmart for a few more supplies. It seems as though there is always a Walmart nearby, the travelers stop. when you are out of something or have left some critical item at home on the kitchen counter.
Back on the road, Carol was thumbing through information on what might be interesting along the route. Carol found the Eisenhower Lock and the St Lawrence Seaway Visitors Center, so off we went. Unfortunately the Visitor’s Center was closed but there was a huge freighter in the lock as we rolled up the hill to the parking area. Getting to the parking area we actually drove under the ship in a tunnel. The ship was the Isabelle G, a Portuguese ship that was heading outbound toward the sea. I have an app that allows me to locate and identify ships and I found that she was built in 2004, is 200 meters in length (656 feet) and has a gross tonnage of 22792 tons.
It was interesting watching a ship of this size going through the lock. In our travels by boat we have been through many locks, but watching this huge ship as she was stepping down toward the sea was awesome. Another curiosity was the number of Amish/Mennonites that were there at the lock, and the Dodge Caravan seemed to be the vehicle of choice...I am sure I have many misconceptions of the Amish and Mennonite culture so was surprised to see them driving..as we had seen several horse and buggies on the local roads. The crowd at the parking lot all seemed to be in awe of such a large ship transiting the lock and cameras and mobile phones were taking lots of photos. We did the same thing. It was a good stop, Harper had a good walk and we had sandwiches for lunch in the Doodles' comfortable lounge watching the people and ship traffic. Another ship, Canadian registry, was waiting downstream to climb up the locks into the lakes, but we left before she entered the lock.
Back on the road the scenery was something out of a Norman Rockwell painting or maybe Eric Sloan’s wonderful paintings of barns and foliage. New York State was beautiful as we traveled the secondary 'blue highways' through rolling hills heading toward Plattsburgh. Our destination for the night was Elf Farm Winery and Cider House, another Harvest Hosts’ location. We arrived around 4:00 in the afternoon parking next to the vines which were full of ripening grapes. We went in and met Mark, the Barkeep and Chef. We did a tasting flight of hard ciders and ate a few of his famous chicken wings. Although I am not a big fan of hard cider, each of the ciders we tasted had a very distinct flavor. Chatting with Mark we recognized the pride he takes in brewing the ciders and he seemed especially proud of his chicken wing recipe. Later we took a short ride to discover where the ferry was as we planned to take the ferry across Lake Champlain the following morning. We turned in early after watching some local TV, as the morning was going to be up early and underway.
