Hi everybody! We just concluded our upstate NY vacation this year and had a very good time despite the onslaught Mother Nature threw at us (rain on 6 out of 12 days)...
Originally we were going to trailer my Glastron up, spend a few days on the Erie, then attend the NYS Fair Monday/Tuesday in Syracuse (something told me don't do this on a weekend) and go back out on the canal the rest of the week before heading to Kingston on the weekend to catch the party and boat parade...
Thanks to the weather, we scrubbed the early part of the trip, staying instead on the big boat at the Anchorage and hanging out with friends the first Friday/Saturday of the trip. We did head up on Sunday as we had hotel reservations that night, at the Best Western right across the street from the Fair. It was a good decision because, despite sporadic rain Monday and Tuesday, there was plenty of time and dry enough weather to enjoy the Fair. If you've never been there, its a huge show, with all sorts of agricultural stuff (animals, big giant tractors, produce, etc.) as well as RVs, trains, state exhibits, rides, food, and exhibits by organizations such as the 4-H. I was SOOO impressed by those 4-H kids. I talked to some from Ogdensburg NY which is on the NY/Ontario border and was treated to a whole dissertation on how the State manages its flood control program. And they call this "fly-over" country? Dammit, the spoiled brats down here in Putnam/Westchester won't give you the time of day if you're an adult, much less know that much about mechanical engineering to sit there and have a 10 minute conversation about it. Plus one of 'em showed my son how to make a butterfly out of strips of paper and a pipe cleaner...
The police had an exhibit of police cars dating back decades. All of the ones you've been pulled over by, from giant Plymouth Furies to Ford Mustangs...
We spent $50 on rides for Jonathan, and about as much on the (often lousy) food. Somehow I lost 4 pounds on this trip, though...
In between rain drops we took in the Erie Canal museum in downtown Syracuse, which is a very worthwhile stop because it has some great hands-on exhibits there. My son really paid attention and learned a lot there. Interestingly, the canal museum is now about 10 miles from the canal, because they closed that section of the Erie when the Barge Canal opened and what used to be the Erie Canal is now Erie Boulevard...
Then, it was off to Onondaga County Park (a beauty) and the Erie Canal. They say Onondaga Lake is the most polluted lake in the USA, well, all I can say is its waters were crystal clear when we were on it. And we had the lake virtually all to ourselves. The Park is nice too, almost rings the lake, which means its about 10 miles long. Bike trails, walking trails, beautiful homes that seem more at place in New Rochelle than they do Syracuse. The Erie was lovely, too. Lots of weeds to steer around, but again lined by nice homes and punctuated by some nice bodies of water, like Cross Lake on Onondaga County's western border. Although the Cross Lake Marina's facilities leave something to be desired, its grounds are beautiful and there's a restaurant. The lake itself is about 3 times the size of Lake Mahopac here in Putnam County, which means we had enough room to go speedboating which my son loves. The biggest boat at the marina was 28 feet which should tell you something, although the water in the lake is quite deep (over 60 feet) for most of it...
We DID, however, have a couple of mishaps. One, my son swallowed a quarter the day we were headed for the boat. After a trip to the emergency room (only took 1 hour!!!) we were told he'd pass the thing and were given a supply of rubber gloves and a "Nun's Cap" - lovely...
Secondly, I think we got Ethanoled again. The damn boat started running terrible in the Canal on the first day. Which got me mad because we had just finished doing a bunch of runs at 4000 RPM on Onondaga Lake and everything was fine. We put into Cooper's Marina in Baldwinsville, which has very nice facilities and friendly, competent mechanics. $350 and a partially rebuilt carb, new fuel filter (2nd in 2 weeks!) and new rotor/pts/condenser later we were back on the water. The boat ran ok after that until the next day when it acted up again. I learned that if you kept easing the throttle forward it would eventually clear itself out and work up to full speed again, but you had to be patient and ignore the bucking and occasional backfire...
We returned to Coopers the next day and Brian the chief mechanic said he expected we'd be changing a lot of fuel filters for awhile as whatever crap was flowing out of the tank got into the engine. I read in the Boat/US magazine that the ethanol acts as a detergent and cleans your tank walls of all that crap that was hanging on them, and that certainly appears to have been the case with my boat judging from the sediment in the float bowl of the carb and the fuel filter, which I replaced again (for the 3rd time!) upon returning to Kingston...
With threatening weather heading in for the weekend we pulled out of the water Friday night and went back to our house on Saturday to do laundry (got in just in time for the power to go out thanks to Ernesto) and then returned to Kingston on Sunday in order to participate in the picnic and boat parade. It was quite a sight with 23 plus boats decorated and moving down the creek. Up in Syracuse next week they will have a 3 DAY Christmas Party, with many boats parading some 15 plus miles, I think it is on Sunday. Someday I've got to get up there to see that...
So we're glad to be home, a little sorry we had to cut a few things short, but happy to have had a nice visit to upstate New York...
Originally we were going to trailer my Glastron up, spend a few days on the Erie, then attend the NYS Fair Monday/Tuesday in Syracuse (something told me don't do this on a weekend) and go back out on the canal the rest of the week before heading to Kingston on the weekend to catch the party and boat parade...
Thanks to the weather, we scrubbed the early part of the trip, staying instead on the big boat at the Anchorage and hanging out with friends the first Friday/Saturday of the trip. We did head up on Sunday as we had hotel reservations that night, at the Best Western right across the street from the Fair. It was a good decision because, despite sporadic rain Monday and Tuesday, there was plenty of time and dry enough weather to enjoy the Fair. If you've never been there, its a huge show, with all sorts of agricultural stuff (animals, big giant tractors, produce, etc.) as well as RVs, trains, state exhibits, rides, food, and exhibits by organizations such as the 4-H. I was SOOO impressed by those 4-H kids. I talked to some from Ogdensburg NY which is on the NY/Ontario border and was treated to a whole dissertation on how the State manages its flood control program. And they call this "fly-over" country? Dammit, the spoiled brats down here in Putnam/Westchester won't give you the time of day if you're an adult, much less know that much about mechanical engineering to sit there and have a 10 minute conversation about it. Plus one of 'em showed my son how to make a butterfly out of strips of paper and a pipe cleaner...
The police had an exhibit of police cars dating back decades. All of the ones you've been pulled over by, from giant Plymouth Furies to Ford Mustangs...
We spent $50 on rides for Jonathan, and about as much on the (often lousy) food. Somehow I lost 4 pounds on this trip, though...
In between rain drops we took in the Erie Canal museum in downtown Syracuse, which is a very worthwhile stop because it has some great hands-on exhibits there. My son really paid attention and learned a lot there. Interestingly, the canal museum is now about 10 miles from the canal, because they closed that section of the Erie when the Barge Canal opened and what used to be the Erie Canal is now Erie Boulevard...
Then, it was off to Onondaga County Park (a beauty) and the Erie Canal. They say Onondaga Lake is the most polluted lake in the USA, well, all I can say is its waters were crystal clear when we were on it. And we had the lake virtually all to ourselves. The Park is nice too, almost rings the lake, which means its about 10 miles long. Bike trails, walking trails, beautiful homes that seem more at place in New Rochelle than they do Syracuse. The Erie was lovely, too. Lots of weeds to steer around, but again lined by nice homes and punctuated by some nice bodies of water, like Cross Lake on Onondaga County's western border. Although the Cross Lake Marina's facilities leave something to be desired, its grounds are beautiful and there's a restaurant. The lake itself is about 3 times the size of Lake Mahopac here in Putnam County, which means we had enough room to go speedboating which my son loves. The biggest boat at the marina was 28 feet which should tell you something, although the water in the lake is quite deep (over 60 feet) for most of it...
We DID, however, have a couple of mishaps. One, my son swallowed a quarter the day we were headed for the boat. After a trip to the emergency room (only took 1 hour!!!) we were told he'd pass the thing and were given a supply of rubber gloves and a "Nun's Cap" - lovely...
Secondly, I think we got Ethanoled again. The damn boat started running terrible in the Canal on the first day. Which got me mad because we had just finished doing a bunch of runs at 4000 RPM on Onondaga Lake and everything was fine. We put into Cooper's Marina in Baldwinsville, which has very nice facilities and friendly, competent mechanics. $350 and a partially rebuilt carb, new fuel filter (2nd in 2 weeks!) and new rotor/pts/condenser later we were back on the water. The boat ran ok after that until the next day when it acted up again. I learned that if you kept easing the throttle forward it would eventually clear itself out and work up to full speed again, but you had to be patient and ignore the bucking and occasional backfire...
We returned to Coopers the next day and Brian the chief mechanic said he expected we'd be changing a lot of fuel filters for awhile as whatever crap was flowing out of the tank got into the engine. I read in the Boat/US magazine that the ethanol acts as a detergent and cleans your tank walls of all that crap that was hanging on them, and that certainly appears to have been the case with my boat judging from the sediment in the float bowl of the carb and the fuel filter, which I replaced again (for the 3rd time!) upon returning to Kingston...
With threatening weather heading in for the weekend we pulled out of the water Friday night and went back to our house on Saturday to do laundry (got in just in time for the power to go out thanks to Ernesto) and then returned to Kingston on Sunday in order to participate in the picnic and boat parade. It was quite a sight with 23 plus boats decorated and moving down the creek. Up in Syracuse next week they will have a 3 DAY Christmas Party, with many boats parading some 15 plus miles, I think it is on Sunday. Someday I've got to get up there to see that...
So we're glad to be home, a little sorry we had to cut a few things short, but happy to have had a nice visit to upstate New York...