The Cabin Fever Tour
September 1, 2024 — Day 1
Keene NH – Utica NY
So you all get to make a ruling on this. In the early planning stages for our late Fall trip to Phoenix, Susan realized that we could go via Canada and visit our friends Yasim and Hussein. This meant that Susan had to (finally!) get her passport. Paul has been bugging her for 14 years to get one. As she was doing the paperwork for her passport she asked Paul, “Do you know where yours is?” Paul did know but on a lark decided to have a look at it and woah. It was going to expire mid-September! Quite possibly, for a fleeting few weeks, Susan could have had a passport. (susan here: And Paul wouldn’t have one!)
Now you can pay some money to expedite a new passport and get it in 2 weeks. You can’t expedite a renewal, or even just renew, a passport in less than 8 weeks. The only “fast track” is if you have travel plans made that are within 2 weeks. That’s a significant piece of information. Paul thought about it for a couple minutes and came up with a plan. Paul booked a campground in Niagara Falls, Ontario with liberal cancellation policies (it was only a $10 cancellation fee, some places keep a day’s fees, some won’t do anything).
And here we are. Niagara Falls, Ontario
(This is partially true, but we’re not putting the entire story online…)
So why do we need a ruling? Paul had to go to Portsmouth, NH to hand in his old passport and they processed his renewal that afternoon. So he had his passport, in hand, August 23rd. When we got back to Keene we went to the place where we get our mail. Susan’s was waiting for hers and it was there. However it was issued August 20th.
This is where we need you, dear readers, to weigh in on who had the current passport first? Paul claims that he did, since he was holding it. Susan has some lame story about “it was delivered and my registered agent had it the prior day(s) blah blah blah.” (susan here; and it was completed on August 20th.)
As we’re prepping for the trip we realized that we were well ahead of schedule. When that happens we’ll leave early instead of pushing a long day, in this case to get to the NY state park we had booked reservations at. Susan found a Cracker Barrel where we could boondock with the short drive to the state park next day. Perfect! We were done loading the RV, grabbed showers and with nothing left to do so off we went!
The ride was uneventful and we eventually pulled into a rest area on the NY Throughway just for a driver change and we found a little park with signs teaching us about the Erie Canal. Here’s a search light from the canal.
This powerful search light was once on one of the State’s tugs or other maintenance vessels.
Since the very first days of the Erie Canal, boats had large lanterns to help point the way during night time travels as the canal operated around the clock.
In the canal’s narrow channels, boaters needed to see what other boats might be approaching out of the night to avoid collision. Then, as now, the canal is notorious for foggy conditions and such beacons of light provided extra safety. The State’s tugs, derrick boats, and dredges have often been called upon to work at night, sometimes under emergency conditions of high water and amidst flood debris.
Lights such as these were essential.
Upstate New York is really beautiful even if the clouds are starting to come in.
The clouds surprised us. We had looked at the weather forecast, right? Right? We had looked at the weather forecast for the day we expected to travel, which was tomorrow. But not today. Oops! Rookie mistake and we should have known better. It was getting darker by the mile.
Minutes later the rain started.
We pulled off into a rest area for dinner. The Cracker Barrel was only ever meant to be the overnight, never dinner, they have yucky food. The plan was to do dinner once we got there. So much for plans. While we were eating the rain kept getting worse. We were still over an hour out from the CB. We both started to wonder if we could find something, anything, nearer than that Cracker Barrel or would we wind up having to overnight in this truck stop. Success! We found a Harvest Host, The Woodland Farm Brewery, just up the road in Utica NY. It was closed, hmmm, we ask, right? Their Harvest Host page said they responded in minutes. They did and they saved the day! We would have loved to stop in and buy something, that’s always suggested as a thank for the overnight stay, but they didn’t seem to mind. Hey Woodland Farms, we’ll be back!
(Remember, the circles show nights slept…)
Daily: 189
Total: 189
Driving Miles/Day: 189
Overall Miles/Day: 189 (aren’t the numbers pretty on Day 1?)