A wonderfully busy day today. Up early again, a shower, some breakfast, a chance to check email and all the rest. Was on the road for Fort Klock by 10:30 hoping that it was going to be open today..... it was.

   Got to the site and rang the bell near the half open door, just as the sign said to do, and.... no one came around. Not wishing to be thought a pain in the butt I went looking for some one and so ran into the guy who is taking care of the place over the summer. David Klock is evidently a really distant cousin who just happened to be enamored with researching the Klocks and all of their descendants. Starting about 10 years ago he and his wife started coming to Fort Klock every summer from their home in Wisconsin to keep it open, lead tours and take care of the place. He evidently loves his 'work' as he proceeded to give me a 3 hour personnel tour of the whole place.

   We started with the homestead of course, and he was able to give me a run down on the whole history of it from the year it was built, 1750, until the present. Lots of neat tidbits of information, but I am going to save most of it for tomorrow when I hope to start posting annotated pictures of it all. Needless to say it was nearly too much to take in at one time. We did the barn and the school and then the black smith shop. Then, as it was after lunch for all of us, I took off to go get some lunch, but not before David asked if I wanted to go see some other sites off the homestead this evening after the Fort closed for the day. So of course I said yes.

    Went and grabbed a bite to eat and read the paper before coming back at 5:00. Of course someone else had shown up at about 10 til 5:00 and David was nice enough to give them a short version of the house tour before meeting up with me. I ended up hopping in to the van with David, his wife Doris and grand daughter Alexis and spent another couple hours being driven around to various places in the valley that had been important to the Klock family. So we went to two family cemeteries where members of the Klock, Nellis, Lipe and other Klock relatives were buried. We all saw the original houses of Colonel Jacob Klock, Old George Klock and the Nellis Tavern building. While driving down the highways and byways, they also showed me where several current Klocks lived or had recently lived, two different 'Klock' roads, Klock Ridge and the area where the battle of Klocks Field had taken place. By then it was nearly 9:00 and I was getting hungry again, but they still insisted on showing me the Historic Indian Castle Church and some of the area that was effected by the floods last year and in 2008. All in all a very pleasurable evening.

   A quick bite to eat once back at the trailer and then a couple of hours downloading the nearly 250 photo's from today as well as doing a first sorting of them and getting a start on working on them. Will continue working on them over the next couple of days and will start posting them tomorrow. For now though it is time to stop for the night.

   So what is this waking up early stuff that is going on. It was barely 7:00 am this morning and I'm wide awake. I know, I know.... not much sympathy for me, but it was nearly 2:00 am when I finally went to bed last night, so this is kind of ridiculous.

   That being said, it was good to be up and about early as today was moving day. Had everything packed up and stored away by 9:00 and hitched up and pulling out a half hour later. Only one minor glitch in the whole process, when I went to run the scissor jacks up into their stowed position the trailer moved forward on the blocks it was up on because the rain had softened the ground under them. Long story short is that the front tongue jack rolled forward off the 4"x6" block it was on and embedded itself about 3" into the ground. Could of been worse, the whole front jack could of bent over into a pretzel and then I would of been kinda screwed with no real way to lift the front of the trailer back up. Would of figured it out somehow, but am glad it didn't come to that. As it is the worst thing that happened was that the right front scissor jack was bent backwards where it is connected to the trailer frame. So at some point it will need to be welded back into position, but for today I just took a block of wood and lowered the trailer down onto it until the weight pressed the plate back into position. It'll work until a more permanent solution can be found.

   Other than that the trip back to the area around Fort Klock was uneventful. No rain, a bit cooler, less humid and still pretty. Pulled into the same campground as last time and it was refreshing to find out that everybody here still remembered me, from the check in girl, Kelly, to the owners Tom and Jenny and the women and her dog in the RV across the road. They even gave me the same spot back in the trees I had last time.

   Got all set up and finally got some lunch fixed and eaten. Kind of late in the afternoon to go any where so I just hung out here and read a new book I found in my stash. An old Louis L'Amour western, 'The Key-Lock Man', only a 153 pages, but still enjoyable. Finished it up after a couple of hours and decided it was time to finally watch the last movie in the Shrek franchise I hadn't seen. In this case 'Shrek-3'. Totally enjoyable also!

   It's back to having a lousy WiFi signal and no phone signal at all while here at the campground. The plan is to only stay until Sunday morning anyway, so it shouldn't be to hard to cope. Glad I got a lot of on-line stuff done last week while in Oswego, but will have to load pictures and do most everything else to do with the net in town at the library. Just writing this one page has taken more than an hour this evening because the signal is so poor.

    So the plan is to go over to Fort Klock tomorrow morning and see if it is open to the public now. Will stay there to see everything if it is of course. Hope to get some interior shots of the buildings and maybe even talk to someone about some of the history. Will post some pictures at some point if I manage to get any. For now though it's time to go to bed.

    Another hard early morning rainstorm which then continued, off and on, for most of the afternoon also. Took my time getting up and getting a shower, cooking some breakfast and reading the funnies. The rain finally let up a bit just before noon so I went ahead and hopped in the truck and headed for the harbor district where it was just misting lightly. Just wandered the docks for an hour or so and looked at all of the boats. It got me to thinking that it is really time to go sailing again, just need to figure out how to get some of my friends to join me. Of course it's now hurricane season in the Caribbean.... maybe Greece or Turkey? It all sounds wonderful to me, the trick is in making it happen.

   In the meantime it started to rain again while I was down on the docks. Lucky for me the maritime museum was open today so I ducked in there for a very pleasant couple of hours. Most of the exhibits concerned the local area of course, but lots of interesting stuff about ship building in the area and battles won and lost during the Revolutionary war and the war of 1812.

   Lots of nice boat models and old ship parts with exhibits ranging from pre-settlement days right up to the present. They had one whole room devoted to the Coast Guard, the Revenue Service and the Light House Service. The latter two being the two parts that were later joined together to create today's Coast Guard. It's always fun to look through old pictures and see exhibits of boats and station life. After all these years I still miss the excitement a little bit. But it was still better to get out when I did and go do other things. I miss the boats!

    Finally stopped raining around 6:30 this evening and started to clear up. It's suppose to be nicer tomorrow, which would be a big help as I'm planning on leaving in the morning. It has been a really fun week exploring this part of the country and going to the dance and all, but I'll be ready to get on the road again in the morning.

    So back to the last RV camp I was in down near Fort Klock. Hope to spend a couple days there to see the rest of the fort. Which is basically all the interior stuff that was missed last time because it was still closed. Won't be there too long though, instead I'll do a bit of meandering on my way to the next major stop which will be Lexington, Kentucky. Need to be there by the weekend after next for another dance weekend, 'Dance Trance'. Perpetual e-Motion will be the main band and Robert Cromaritie (sp), and Gaye Fifer will be calling. Already looking forward to seeing a whole bunch of people I haven't seen in a while. After that though, it's back to Colorado.

   Watched the movie 'The Godfather' in the trailer this evening. First off let me say that it's a really long movie..... but having now seen the whole thing for the first time, it is easy to see why it won so many awards. I can still remember reading the book when I was 9 or 10 years old and thinking that it was going to make a good movie even then. Al Pacino was one mean mobster in the end.

    So one of the displays in the museum today was this picture and description of the type boats I use to run while in the Coast Guard many, many years ago. They no longer have any of them on duty, but once in awhile you can still find one that someone bought and still maintains.

 

   Woke up to hard rain on the roof of the trailer, wondering in my semi-sleepy haze whether the leak over the bed was going to start up suddenly and once again require me to rig up the upside down umbrella under the roof vent in order to to catch the leaking water before it hit my knees. But the repair seems to be holding for the time being and it being only 6:30, went back to sleep.

   It continued to rain for most of the morning. Sometimes barely making a noise on the roof and at other times creating a din that required me to turn the radio up in order to catch the NPR news. By 11:00 it was finally done and the clouds started to blow away and the sun came out beaming. The temperature rose, as did the humidity of course.

   Didn't really have that much to do today, other than catch up on my sleep. Went down town and wandered a couple streets down there and took a few pictures of some neat older houses and other buildings. Walked down by the river and the canal watching a couple boats locking through. Not much else was stirring on this Memorial Day.

   Went over and caught the new Men In Black movie late this afternoon. An okay movie, but like most movies of this genera, that is about all you can say about it. Some good special effects, made better by being in 3-D, a good Boys Night Out kind of movie but not destined to win any awards.

    Another walk this evening just to watch the sunset over the far side of the lake. Pretty day and a nice quiet evening. One more day here and then it's off to another adventure. In the meantime; here are a few pictures of the Selkirk Light House I took yesterday.

  

Set on a point of land nearly a quarter of a mile inland from the edge of the lake this light house is similar to many on the Great Lakes. The main building is of laid up native stone and contained the living quarters for the light keeper and his family. The light is of the 'Bird Cage' design which is rare on light houses in general.

A closer view of the 'Bird Cage' style light. On the very top is a copper top.

You can make out the tip of the breakwater just to the right of the back door.

A very nice looking light house, well proportioned and quaint.

     Finished up the Great Bear Groove weekend this afternoon.... it was so much fun... and now it's over. Bummer! The memories will live on however, at least until the next great dance.... which I guess will be about two weeks from now in Lexington, KY. Yeah!

   Only two hours of contras today, but it was hot and the dancing was fast so that was probably enough, even if you always seem to want more. The best part today was the collaboration between the two bands and a few additional people sitting in. At one point I counted 11 musicians on the stage, 4 fiddlers, a mandolin, electric guitar, sax, clarinet, drums, piano and cello. It was some great music. An odd thought hit me though as I was looking at the stage, 3 of the fiddlers up there were young ladies, somewhere in their late teens, maybe early 20's, and I couldn't help but wonder how many parents were out there somewhere shaking their heads when they think how hard they pushed to get there little girls to take up the violin and here they are jumping around on a stage playing an Irish Reel as if their strings were on fire.

   All good things come to an end however, or so I've heard. Once done with dancing I joined my friend for a final lunch overlooking the river. Very nice afternoon sitting outside watching the boats going in and out of the locks, and the sailboats out in the harbor.

   Once lunch was over it was a question of whether I should go back to the trailer and take a nap, which sounded like a really good idea, or take a short drive to the north to check out another light house. In this case the light house won out and I'm glad it did as the day was much to nice to be indoors no matter how good a nap would of felt. So it was off to the town of Selkirk on the Salmon River to check out the light house there. A nice drive through small little towns and past quick views of Lake Ontario to the North. The light house turned out to be another one of those cute boxes made out of laid up native stone. It is still being used as a navigation aid, but is no longer owned by the Coast Guard, but by the local preservation society. Still neat to look at and I did get some decent pictures which I'll post when there is a chance to sort them out a bit.

   Back at the trailer now and it is starting to cool down just a little bit as the sun is going down. Listening to this weeks broadcast of Prairie Home Companion on the computer. Love listening to it on the radio but it always seems to interfer with some activity that is going on. Just heard is Lake Woebegone segment and his tale of 'tick checking'. I now understand a referance a friend made last week to something I had posted on facebook. Will have to go take a little walk still, even if the legs and feet are still a bit stiff and sore from all the dancing. Not sure if it's going to be a night to read or time to watch a movie.... maybe both, or maybe a night to actually get to bed at a decent time. But what's the use of being retired if you can't stay up as long as you want?

    For now though here are some photo's of the dance venue I took this morning.
 

Here is a good view of some of the buildings out at Fallbrook Lodge, just south and west of the town of Oswego. It was evidently once an old Amish farmstead, it is now owned by the University there in Oswego and can be rented out by pretty much anyone. The 'Barn' we danced in is the building right behind this one.

 

The main door into the dance. 

Like most dance weekends there is always an hour of two of waltzing on Sunday morning. Here are a few of the people doing just that. Pretty nice dance space huh?

Out another double door on the other side was this roofed in space where snacks and water were located. There was also a beautiful view of a pond to the south. You'll see that in a sec.

An over all view of the barn. The short addition held the bathrooms. I'm not sure if there was anything on the ground floor of the actual barn. It was likely a usable space though.

 Here is the creek and pond you can see from the snack area. Lot's of new baby geese and lot's of frogs.

Here we have some of the musicians from this weekend. Starting on the right is Momma Kim on piano, on fiddle is Noah, on other fiddle from the group Firefly, is Cedar, on electric guitar is Andrew, on clarinet is Rebecca, also from Firefly and I am sad to say I don't know the name of the sax player, but he was awesome. Kim, Noah and Andrew make up the group Great Bear Trio. 

Another view of the band. Later on during the regular dance they were joined on stage by many more friends.

Here you can get a feel for just how tall this barn is inside. The floor is original and in pretty good shape for dancing considering. There are a couple rough spots down the hall a ways, and the whole floor seems to tilt slightly up the hall and toward the right side of the stage. That is where every one seemed to end up after every dance anyway.

A closer view of the ceiling. You can see that it isn't really a true post and beam building, but it does use some posts and beams for part of the structure. It was a very interesting structure and seems to work just fine.

These inverted triangular framing members are unique to me. Acting like a truss member they obviously hold up the beam at the top of the wall as well as the mid span roof beam. Why they cantilevered the roof joists the way they did is beyond me, unless it was strictly to provide a really high ceiling structure. I can't imagine anyone stacking anything that high though.

A final shot that shows how neat a space this was to dance in. All that was missing were a few bales of hay and the smell of manure. Will have to see how the schedule works out next year, but I could certainly see coming to this dance again.

   Another wonderful day here in Oswego. More dancing of course.... that is the main reason I'm here after all, but there is so much more to do in and around the area that it is a great place to come visit.

   Going back to yesterday for just a bit; a friend of my came into town around noon and gave me a call. Not having much to do either, she decided to join me on my road trip over to Sodus Bay to check out a couple of light houses. It was actually a bit farther over there than I first thought, but we did end up finding both light houses in the end. Both are pictured below.

    After looking at both and wandering out the breakwater and back in, we were both ready for some lunch. Of course it could of also had something to do with it being nearly 3:00 in the afternoon. We found a nice little bar/restaurant right on the bay where we could watch the boats coming in and out and this little old guy out on one of the docks fishing. Good meal and a pleasant time sitting there in the sunshine talking about the up coming dance. A very nice time.

   Best part of the afternoon was getting back into town with enough time to take a short nap before the dance started. Around 7:00 it was time to go over to the dance and get ready. The building where the dance is being held is this great old two story barn. Not quite a full 'post and beam' style, it seems to be partially P&B and partially stick framed. Either way, it is a great place to dance.

   Lot's of nice people at the dance of course and only a dozen or so that I know enough to recognize. High energy, pulsing dance music right from the first note. Of course it is also hot and humid so every one was wet and sweaty from the get-go. No problem though since every one was in the same boat, so you just deal with it. It must of been a good dance because it seemed like we just starting to dance and then it was over. A couple ibuprofen last night before bed and I'm nearly ready to start all over again.

    Slept a little late this morning, but was actually up sooner than I thought I would of been. Hung out at the trailer this morning until just before 11:00 when it was time to head into town and meet up with my friend again. We took a short walk along the Oswego River until noon and then went in search of a place to eat. Ended up at a little bar/restaurant in the old town area that had a nice patio to sit on and eat. Decent food and drink and very pleasant company. We spent close to 2 hours there before heading out to go see Fort Oswego, which is only a short walk to the north of the river.

   Had a pleasant surprise when we got there, because my friend is on active duty, entrance to the site was free. Not that it would of been very expensive anyway.... but every little bit helps. An interesting site to explore, but it seems like it is just now getting up and going as a historical site, so most of the buildings were still empty and there wasn't all that much to look at or read about. We did have a good time watching the Sgt. of the guard drilling his detail in close combat fighting and loading and firing their rifles.

    Nearly 4:00 now and it's time for a nap today before the dance starts up once again.

    12:05 am - So the evening dance is now over, hard to believe it went so quick and it was even an hour longer this evening. The first two hours the band was 'Firefly' from some where up here in the NE. A good band that I've danced to in the last year or so, just can't remember where. That is either a matter of getting old and starting to forget things like that or, as I like to believe, I'm just going to so many dances that I can't keep track any more

   The second half was with GBT and friends and it was just a rockin' good time. They are really starting to expand their song base, doing a lot more rock tinged music, and it sounds real good and is a lot of fun to dance to. Of course having a couple other band members sitting in with them doesn't hurt either. Their final dance for the evening was the song 'Mr Plow' and by the end of the dance the endorphins must of just been flowing everywhere. It is dances such as those that keep me coming back night after night.  But alas, it did finally end and now it's time to once again get some sleep. It has been a long but fun day.


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Sodus Bay Light House. This is the third one on this site, the first two having either been blown down or just rotted away from neglect.  They now have a small museum in this one that is kind of fun to visit.



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A nice stone building with a brick interior. The county or city now own it but it still functions as a know navigational beacon.



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A closer look at the light.

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At the top they have an old glass Fresnel light, about 4th order in size, I think. Check out the kind of bulb they have lighting it though.

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The Sodus Bay Entrance Light on the breakwater to the harbor.

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A view of the Entrance Light at the end of the breakwater.

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A Closer view of the Sodus Bay Entrance Light.



    First night of dancing is done at the Great Bear Trio Groove weekend here in Oswego, NY. What a wonderful energetic, warm, sweaty good time.... just to short. There's more that happened today, and I'll get to it at some point, but it's now past 12:30 and I'm tired. It starts all over again tomorrow morning.

   Some times life is just good!



    Will post more tomorrow.

   What a wonderful day today was. Woke up early again for some reason, not sure what that is all about since it would of been nice to sleep at least another hour or so. But the sun was up and the trailer was warming up so what can ya do?

   First thing on the agenda after breakfast was to go locate where the dance is going to be this weekend. A very pleasant surprise is that it is less than 3 miles, and 5 minutes away from here. Didn't get out and look around, but the building, a kind of barn looking thing, looked like it will be a lot of fun to dance in.

   Once that was taken care of it was off to explore downtown Oswego. Parked the truck right off the main highway and wandered around for several hours down there. They have a wonderful granite court house on the hill right above the river. Will explore the river trail a little bit more on another day as there was plenty of walking done today as it was. Quite a few cute little shops and restaurants down there, including at least one brew pub that looks interesting. Wandered out toward the edge of the harbor and found the maritime museum on the end of one of the main docks. It was closed while I was there unfortunately, it being most peoples regular lunch time. Didn't want to hang around another 45 mins until they got back so it was off to find something else to look at. Will go back and see it at another time.

  Spent nearly an hour trying to figure out how to get out to the light house out at the far side of the harbor. It was on a long, long, really long breakwater and I just couldn't determine how to get to the shoreward end of it. Wandered all around down there by the docks, which was pleasant enough anyway, until I finally figured out that it was going to be clear past the power plant to the west. Somewhere over there near the east end of the university campus. Even then it took a while to find it and in the end it was a matter of asking a couple students that were walking by where it was.

    Once found though it was easy enough to figure out where it was going to end up, even if the actually walk out to it was anything but easy. Took over an hour to work my way out along the top and sides of the stones and concrete that made up the actual breakwater. There was a certain amount of 'rock hopping' and climbing around and over these tumbled boulders before finally reaching the light house. But what the heck, it was a beautiful, warm and sunny afternoon and there were a few sailboats in the harbor to watch.

   The light house, like most, could use a little tender loving care and some new paint, but was still beautiful for all the rust and broken railing on it. Took lots of pictures and have posted several below. the first 5 are of the Verona Beach light house I saw two nights ago and then the next 7 are from today.

   One last thing of interest is that they closed off one of the main streets downtown this afternoon and had a small farmers market there. Wandered around for a little while looking at all the fresh produce. Picked up a basket of tomatoes, the first decent ones I've had since leaving Florida. These were grown in a green house hydo-ponically, so not right out of the ground, but at least they smell and taste like real tomatoes are suppose too. Also got some fresh out of the ground asparagus and this huge head of romaine lettuce that was picked this morning. (slugs are extra). Added one loaf of fresh baked whole wheat bread made by a couple of little old Amish ladies and dinner was almost complete. The only additional purchase was a small ball of freshly made sheep's milk mozzarella cheese. Oh man, dinner tonight was a nice salad with some peach balsamic dressing I picked up at some farmers market in Wisconsin and open faced tuna sandwiches on fresh bread. It was delicious!

The Light House at Verona Beach on the east end of Lake Oneida in New York. Built to show the entrance to the Barge Canal it stands slightly more than 84.5' high and 3.5' above the lakes waterline

Another view looking from the beach.

Part of the tower was precast somewhere down south near Rome NY, but it was hard to see any joints until I looked at this picture.

A view of the light on top of the tower. They evidently leave it on day and night just in case the weather turns nasty. It flashes every 3 seconds.

 I like this view of it.

Here we have the Light House at the entrance to Oswego Harbor. At this point I have walked about 2/3 ds of the distance to it on the breakwater. Don't be fooled because it doesn't look very far, I was using a 150mm telephoto on this shot.

The local Coast Guard Station had their 47' Motor Life Boat out for drills for a while this afternoon. At this point I think they were practicing anchoring and de-anchoring the boat. They had one of the anchors out anyway. I thought it made a nice picture to see the new and the old together. 

This photo is a bit of an optical illusion. The point of land to the left of the light house in this picture is actually the end to the east breakwater, while the light house is sitting on the end of the west breakwater. The main channel out of the harbor is just beyond the light house then.

This gives you and idea of what the breakwater looked like, though there were several points where you had to climb up and down 4'-6' high ledges.  No real problem, other than the one 500-600 pound rock that moved when I jumped on it. Visions of crushed ankles came to mind as did falling in some very cold looking water. Made it out and back with no problem though.

A closer view of the light house. It really is very pretty, or maybe it's just the day.

A view of the boarding ladders the light house keeper and visitors would of had to climb when they came out by boat. I would imagine that all supplies would of come out by boat also. This is actually the 3rd light house built in this area.

A final view of the light tower. Couldn't actually see anything of the light but I would imagine it is one of the newer electric Fresnel types. It probably originally had a 3rd or maybe even a 4th order lens, not a very big one in any case.

    Up way to early this morning, even if it was a moving day. Once up though, packing up and getting on the road went very well, except for the one trailer tire that keeps going soft on me anyway. It's one of 4 on the trailer and it must have a slow leak in it somewhere. Good thing I have one of those little portable air compressor thingies. It works well, but the tire was so low this morning that it didn't get all the way pumped up before the compressor ran out of juice. Got it filled enough to get on the road safely, and then stopped at the first place that had a pay filler-upper thingy. The main thing is it got filled and it didn't blow out on me and ruin my whole day.

    Stuck to the back roads all the way up to Oswego in keeping with my theme on this trip, which has been to stay off the main interstate highways as much as possible. So it was back over through Rome and on to Camden, Amboy and on into Mexico, NY before hitting the outskirts of Oswego. Oswego doesn't seem to be that big of a place, and the road seemed to take me right through the middle of it. The RV camp is just west of town, not even a mile away. Indeed there is a University, SUNY, just down the road less than a 1/4 mile and it sits right on the edge of the city. I'm assuming the acronym stands for State University of New York or some such thing. Anyway; Emma took me right to camp this time, she didn't even try to send me down a dead end street or a one ways for a change. Pulled in and talked to the owner who already had my reservation and he gave me a choice spot one row back from the road and under a nice shade tree. Lake Ontario is about 100'-150' away on the other side of the road and you can see it from the trailer with no problems. There is also a well visited ice cream stand right over there with a few tables to sit at overlooking the lake... I'm thinking ice cream may come in handy later on in the week.

   Got set up and finally had some lunch, took a nice walk over to the university and back and started looking up things to do in the area. Can already see that there isn't going to be enough time to see every thing this week. That's okay though, it'll just give me another incentive to come back again if I end up liking it here. So on tap for tomorrow is a visit to Fort Ontario right in town. Evidently an important fort during the French/Indian wars as well as the war of 1812 and the Revolutionary War. There is also a small maritime museum right in town as well as a light house out on the break water into the harbor.

    Further out from town are a couple more light houses as well as a light house museum at Sodus Inlet just west of here. The whole Oswego River area with it's locks and old mills, plus all the neat buildings I am sure to find down there. I'm excited about getting started already.

     Had a chance to work on a couple more rainbow pictures from last night. I'm afraid the pictures don't really do it justice. In real life it was much brighter and the 2nd rainbow was as clear as a single one generally is. Oh well, the photo's are still good enough and I'll always remember how vibrant the whole thing was.

The view looking to the north. These were taken several minutes after we had arrived and already the colors were starting to fade. You can still see the 2nd rainbow above the first one though.

The center section.

I liked this shot because of the reflection in the water also. If you had been there you would of seen a nearly complete circle made by the rainbow and it's reflection. Another odd thing was the little vertical piece of rainbow that took off from the end of the main arch and met up with the second rainbow about 1/3 of the way up. Had never seen anything quite like that before. In the end though the only thing that really mattered was how beautiful it was.

    Only time for a short post this evening, it's already near midnight and I need to be up early in the morning in order to pack up and move.

    A very nice day for me though. Headed west this morning and ended up in Rome, NY for a couple of hours of wandering around. Wanted to go to the 'Erie Canal Village', a museum and buildings based on, and showing, what life along the Erie Canal would of been like 150 years ago. But alas, it isn't open until Memorial Day weekend. So once again a week too early.

   No problem though as it was nearly time to go meet up with a friend of mine for dinner. She had flown into the area yesterday on business and knew she would have this evening off. No problem finding her hotel, and as there were no decent restaurants around that area, we decided to go on over to Sylvan Beach, on the east end of Oneida Lake, and see if we could find something there. I should explain that the reason we hit on that location is because I had looked up and discovered that there was a light house over there on the lake where the Barge (Erie) Canal opens into the lake.

   Actually found the light house with out too many problems despite the fact that the signs for it are few and very, very small. Nice little light house though, so we got out, wandered around, took pictures, and then went off in search of food. We ended up finding a really nice restaurant that looked out over the town beach and the east end of the lake. Can't remember the name of it, and it really doesn't matter. The food was adequate, basic 'pub' food, but the beer was cold, the view was wonderful and the company was very nice. We sat for quite some time while watching one rain storm cell after another march across the west end of the lake.

   After dinner we tried to take a walk down along the water front, but the rain finally backed around and hit us too. Instead we took to the truck and decided to take a drive around the lake. While driving toward the west end we noticed this amazing double rainbow seemingly coming right out of the middle of the lake. We pulled in, took pictures and watched it for a few moments.

  We finally made it all the way around the lake and I dropped my friend off at her hotel. Fueled up the truck and drove on back to the trailer. No problem there except for a couple tremendous rain cells that went across the highway. Hope it all clears up before tomorrow morning.

   Will be loading up and moving on up to Oswego, NY tomorrow. Need to reposition in order to be ready for the next dance weekend starting on Friday. Have been going through contra dance withdrawal for the last couple of weeks so I am more than ready to be back dancing again. The fact that it is the Great Bear Trio's own dance camp only makes it better. Can't hardly wait.


   Here is one picture of the rainbow's we saw.... there may be more later on.

   A later start than usual, just couldn't seem to get up and going this morning. Good thing it wasn't some situation where it was important to be somewhere at a certain time. Did eventually make it out of the trailer though and took off headed west. Had a vague feeling that it was time to go do some canoeing since there have been several missed opportunities over the last couple of days. Ended up on the Erie Canal over by the town of Herkimer, where there was a little park with a boat ramp and dropped the boat into the water.

   Felt good to be in a canoe again watching the banks flow by. Headed up river to start, not that there was all that much current to contend with, still it always pays to go upstream just in case you break a paddle or something, kinda hard to get very far with just your hands. Plus it's really nice to be able to sit back and just float downriver for a little while, all the while watching out for those 'Down River People' of course. (A phase my friends and I have heard on many a river trip). Funny thing is, we've met those down river folks and in general they are just as nice as the ones we met up river. They, of course, also tend to warn us about the people who live further down the river.

   Spent some time this evening putting stuff away and getting ready for another move on Wednesday. Am going to meet a friend tomorrow evening over in Verona, NY for dinner and expect it'll be a bit late by the time I make it back to the trailer. Doesn't take a lot of time to put things in their place, after this amount of time everything in the trailer has it's own little niche where it lives while on the road. Will need to do another good trailer clean-out once back in Colorado. Have found that there is only so much room in the trailer and truck, so collecting very many things is out of the question. About the only thing I collect from my travels are 'shot' glasses, and then only ones from places I've actually been to or that mean something to me. Have even started collecting a few of the taller ones they have thinking that they will make great lemon-cello glasses someday. So far I'm on the 3rd case of them and each case holds between 25 and 30. It may be fun to look at them once I grow tired of this and settle down again.... won't be any time soon though.

    A friend of mine on Facebook re-posted this video one of her other friends had posted. For those of you that remember a young Clint Eastwood and all of those 'spagetti' westerns he did way back then, this song may bring back a few memories. Be sure to watch long enough to hear and see some of their special song effects.

   Summer feels like it is here to stay now. Had to be close to 90 degrees this afternoon, but with little humidity and just a hint of a breeze, it was really quite nice outside. So of course I spent some of that time indoors instead. Really hadn't meant too but I stopped by the movie theatre on a whim to see what time the movie 'Battleship' was going to be playing this week and found that it was playing at 4:05 this afternoon or at 7:30 pm for the rest of the week. Don't ya just love small town theatres? Decided driving home 20 miles in the dark tomorrow night wasn't a great way to spend an evening, so-o-o it was 'Boys Night Out at the Movies' time.

    Turns out that the movie is actual quite entertaining, nearly a perfect example of the genre. Lot's of gratuitous violence, space aliens, very nice looking women in macho roles, and a decent enough plot, as long as you didn't think about it to hard. Still trying to get my head around why space travelling aliens are able to protect themselves from modern day planes, cruise missiles and ordinance, but for some reason big old plain bullets just seem to be able to blow them away..... as I said, don't think about it too much, just enjoy.

    Did have enough time after the movie to go take a short walk around a new neighborhood in town, so it was nice seeing new buildings and houses and smelling all the back yard barbecuing that was going on. Really made me hungry for a good burger and beer. Instead it was back to the trailer to finish up some chicken burritos I made yesterday. Not a bad meal either.... still needed beer though.

   Took a few moments to call up a good friend of mine this afternoon. Today he ran his first ever marathon race. At the age of 59 I find that remarkable, but he has always been a heck of an athlete. So way to go Tom!

   Here are a few more photo's... sorry if it seems like there have been an awful lot of pictures of houses, but they interest me and lately I haven't really been to anywhere else that had much of interest for me to take pictures of. There will be though... never fear!


This is the Elks Lodge in the town of Little Falls, NY.

Would love to see what the 3rd floor of this house looks like.



Another one of those single family homes that defy description. The story on this one is that it was just recently purchased and is in the process of having major upgrades both inside and out. Would love to see what the interior of this one looks like.



Here is the garage, or carriage house, for the house above. Even it has a lot of architectural interest with the rounded elements and the same mansard roof that the house has.

A beautiful front porch on this one, plus I like how they framed the 3rd floor window with the gable end trim.



For some reason this doorway caught my eye. Not sure if it is the way all the separate elements are put together, the wonderful paint job or everything in combination. It certainly turned what could of been a very plain facade into something to notice.



Had tried earlier in the morning to get a good picture of the church in the background of this one, the steeple was what had drawn me off the highway and into the middle of town to begin with. Couldn't get a good shot though with out dozens of overhead wires and lift trucks that were doing some restoration work on the front of the church, in the shot. Finally settled on this view because I had planned on taking a picture of the eave supports on this building anyway. Now I like it even better.



Passed by this retaining wall while wandering the street and had to stop and admire it. Here you have a dry stacked, (without mortar), retaining wall that is more than 6' tall and it has been here for maybe 200 years or more. The workmanship is just superb. It may weave a little bit, lean in some spots, but come on.... it's older than any of us will ever get to.

     A couple final pictures from last night: Last night while taking a short after dinner walk I ended up passing 'Grannie's Ice Cream' right here at the RV campground. It is of course located right along side the highway that goes by, but it is interesting to note that on any given afternoon or evening, as long as the weather is nice, there is a line of people here waiting to be served. Walking by it just seemed kind of magical for some reason, something out of my teenage years maybe.