Was up pretty early this morning considering how much and how hard the dancing was this past weekend. My guest, Anita, and I had a pleasant hour or so over breakfast and tea to plan a nice day of activities. We ended up doing a road trip north and east out of the town of Oswego. Our final destination was the town of Alexandria Bay up near the Thousand Island's area of the St Lawrence Seaway. Along the way though we had plenty of time to stop and see, and photograph, a couple of light house's and this wonderful old stone building that was once a grist mill near the town of Clayton.

    We finally arrived at Alexandria Bay though, and after some wandering around we even found the office where we could buy a boat ticket out to 'Heart Island' where the 'Boldt Castle' was located. Timing was pretty good today so there wasn't much of a wait for our boat ride. It is only a 4-5 min boat ride out to the island from the dock there in Alexandria Bay so the boat crewman barely got through his life jacket talk before it was time to disembark.

    The fee to get in is very reasonable at $8 bucks per person, but we also opted to take a 2nd boat ride over to see the separate boat house later on, so that added an additional $2 dollars on to the price. The house and grounds are totally open and your 'tour' is self guided. But there are enough docents hanging about that you could get any questions answered if you had any. The house, mansion or castle, which ever you prefer to call it, was beautiful. Built by the same guy who built and owned the original Waldorf Astoria hotel in NY, the house is all of fitted granite stone on the exterior with clay tile and plaster as the interior finish on the walls and ceiling.

    The house was originally going to be a Valentine present for his wife, but she died the January before it was complete. Though it had taken more than 4 years to get it to 95-98% complete, at word of her death all work was halted on the house and it never was fully completed. The house stayed in limbo for many, many years before finally being abandoned for all intents and purposes for more than 70 additional years. It was finally given over, or purchased, I'm not really sure which, by the 'Thousand Island Bridge Authority' which started restoring it nearly immediately back in 1977.

   Today I would guess that it is about 25-30% restored and it is amazing how beautiful it is. I will be doing a whole set of pictures at some time, but this one is going to take a while to sort through and find some decent one's. As I took nearly 300 pictures today alone, it might just take me a little while.

    A nice ride back to Oswego this afternoon though I was very tired and much in need of a nap. We stopped in the town of Mexico and had a very late lunch of pizza. We ate more than half of a large pie and I have to tell ya that I'm already anticipating a couple slices of cold pizza for breakfast. Yum!

    Tomorrow we pack up and take off for Lexington. As we don't need to be there before Friday at the latest we will take our time and make the trip last a little bit. Not real sure where we will land yet tomorrow night, but we have several options open so we will play that by ear a little bit. In the meantime I'm tired and ready for bed, morning is going to come way to soon for me.