Wednesday, August 15, through Saturday, August 18, 2012:  Four Days in New York:
It was a 137-mile trek to Cambria, New York (near Lockport), crossing the border at Lewiston, New York.


But for an outrage at the border, it was an easy trip.  The outrage was that it took more than two hours to get through U.S. Customs and Immigration. 

We were lucky---we could hop into our trailer to use the "facilities" while we waited in the 85 degree heat.  The poor folks in cars had to simply sit there and take it.  There was no obvious reason for the delay; just our crack Homeland Security people taking their sweet time processing people through.

At one point I took Ramsey out for a walk on the grassy area next to the fence leading to the border, since he had been in the truck for four hours at that point, and we were ordered back into the truck by one of the federales.

Once through the border, it was only 20 minutes to our RV Park, Niagara's Lazy Lakes RV Resort.  It's a nice place, in a largely agricultural area.  (We're going through a lot of those lately.)

On the way here, our "check engine" light came on several times.  I'm usually not one to simply ignore that, given that we are towing eight tons of trailer and are on a tight schedule.  Once here, I contacted three repair facilities, only one of which could see me today.  I went to the Mike Smith GMC dealer in Lockport (about 20 minutes away)



and Jim (the tall guy on the right, below) used the magic tester to determine that the computer showed that the reason for the light was that 5,992 miles ago we had a problem with some emission valve, and had not dealt with it.  It also showed that the problem had not returned and that we did not need to do anything.  He "cleared" the computer and sent me on my way, without charging me anything.  What a guy!  What a relief!



Thursday was our day to visit Niagara Falls, which neither of us had ever seen.  We were prepared to sniff at the falls, since we had visited the huge Iguassu Falls (on the border of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil) twenty years ago and were very impressed.  But Niagara was amazing. 

And the Niagara Falls State Park surrounding the falls on the U.S. side was very nice.  It was well worth the trip.

We then headed a little further south to Buffalo, to see the campus of the State University of New York- Buffalo (aka the University at Buffalo and just UB) which our friend Barbara Coad attended.  It's the largest of the four SUNY campuses.  (UB has three sites of its own in the Buffalo area.)  It'a an impressive place.

On the way home, we stopped in Lockport to have lunch at the Hong Kong Buffet, (a Chinese buffet, naturally, and only so-so) and then went to view one of the locks on the Erie Canal, which starts at Lockport.  We've seen locks before, but this was something special, since neither of us had seen the Erie Canal previously.

Nor had we realized that the canal connects Lake Erie to the Hudson River, thereby giving boat access to the Atlantic Ocean from all of the Great Lakes.

The rest of the day was relaxation-time.

The trip on Friday to Natural Bridge, New York (on the western edge of the Adirondacks) was a very long 256 miles, most of it on Interstates (which made it 40 miles longer than if we had used available lesser roads).  I-90 is a toll road which cost us $23.80.  Wow!  But it was all worth it.

                                   

We are staying in the Adirondack 1000 Islands Campground, which is a nice, rural place with, though, no satellite TV access due to excessive trees.  We will survive, but it won‘t be easy.

Very nearby is Fort Drum, the home of the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S Army, which trains 40,000 troops a year.  Ramsey noticed that the occasional explosions coming from the base sound a lot like thunder---which he really dislikes.  We expect him to spend a lot of time on our bed tonight.

We discovered in the early evening on Friday that the living room DVD/VCR player was kaput.  The way our system is set up, we need to have a working player to watch any TV at all.  Even though we have no satellite coverage for the next two days, we now couldn't even view any of the saved programs on our DVR.  For most people, this would probably be an irritant;  for us, this was a significant emergency.  So we drove to Watertown (25 miles away)

to pick up a replacement player at Wal-Mart.  Fortunately, they had one of our usual brand in stock, so it took only a minute to install it when we got back---at 10:00 PM.  Whew!  Life is good again.

Saturday we ventured to Cranberry Lake in the Adirondack Park, a huge state park that is 125 years old.  Cranberry Lake is the largest in this part of the state.  The lake itself is pretty, and is in a lovely, wooded area. 

But the town next to the lake is a pit.  In fact, most of the towns in the area are pretty run down.  There are plenty of old, abandoned buildings, and some that look like they should be abandoned but are not.  It was interesting to visit the area.  Tomorrow, it's back to Canada for five days.