Watkins Glen, NY

Our last night at Allegheny National Forest was interesting... we had been watching a thunderstorm go by, lightning and all, and when it was over, decided to call it a night. Just as I was falling asleep, I saw headlights come our way. I watched it (it was a golf cart) go past us, then turn around and come back a few minutes later. it drove in behind us, and up to our door. By now I was a little tense and I woke Paul up. He scrambled out to see what was up (naturally it was torrentially down pouring). It turns out it was the ranger guy in charge of this area of the park. He told us there was a severe storm headed our way with strong winds and hail, and that there would be a severe thunderstorm warning all night. This is getting to be an every day occurrence!! We took in the awning which was about all we could do, since we had already packed up to leave in the morning. The storm came but it wasn't that bad. The trip to Watkins Glen was uneventful. Rainy, of course, but uneventful. This is a small, cute town, on Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes Region of NY. Our first day we walked around town, just to get a feel for the town. The following day we hiked in Watkins Glen State Park, through a gorge, with 19 waterfalls. THAT was a great time. The gorge is huge and awesome. When I can post pictures (slow Internet does not allow it!) I will, but they won't do it justice! The sign tells you in advance there are 800 steps to eventually reach the top, which is 1.5 miles away. The last bit is very steep indeed. There is a shuttle you can take, either up, or if you want, from the top down. We walked one trail up, and a different one down. The falls are great, and well worth the trip up there. On the way down we passed by a cemetery that had old gravestones as well as new ones. One of the pictures I took looking inside a crypt or whatever its called, came out really cool. I look forward to posting it. We spent yesterday afternoon relaxing and researching places to stay in ME near Acadia National Park. This morning we drove to several nearby waterfalls, but nothing was as fun and awesome as the gorge. This afternoon we put the dinghy in the water and started to explore Seneca Lake, which is 40 miles long and, at 600 ft deep, the deepest of the Finger Lakes. We anchored for a bit, close to shore and had to put out almost 100 ft of line on the anchor! Unfortunately we could see the storm approaching across the lake, and decided to be prudent and head back. The dinghy doesn't handle big waves too well... Tomorrow will be a boring day, since our plan is to drive as far as we can, headed to Boston. We have no reservations. Maybe it will be our first "Walmart" night? we'll see. I would love to come back to this area and explore it more when we have more time.

Allegheny National Forest

Tues. August 18, 2009- Here we sit, in Allegheny National Forest, PA- no Wi-Fi, no cell phone signal, no TV- Nada….it feels great! Well, it feels great now….earlier today, not so great. We left Geneva, OH, late this morning. When we had the boat, we were used to traveling first thing in the morning (6-7 am), so I am not used to getting such a late start when we head out. Maybe we don’t have the rhythm yet…I also think my mind is in vacation mode, and I really don’t feel like getting up so early. Whatever. That will probably change with time. I don’t like leaving late- you feel like you lose the whole day- can’t do anything worthwhile in the AM, and then by the time you get to your destination, the day is pretty much gone. So, we left a little before noon, drove for an hour so, with the radio on. That awful noise you hear when they do the “test of the emergency broadcast system”? Well, we heard that on the radio. As I was listening, I was thinking, “don’t they usually say they are going to do a test?” Yeah, well, it wasn’t a test, of course. The broadcast was for a severe thunderstorm warning, including one severe storm, packing 60 MPH winds, traveling from blah blah PA, to blah blah PA - couldn’t quite make out all the town names, but we knew it was near, because we were in that county and could see the nastiness up ahead. Of course, the lap top wasn’t even on, so I got it going and pulled up weather.com to check out the radar. Long story short, we avoided the real nasty stuff but had TORRENTIAL downpours on and off all afternoon. Not a pleasant afternoon. We survived, the Everest survived, no issues. Actually the best lesson we learned today was to do a better job of planning what roads to take to get to our destination. The roads we plotted brought us up the side of a Mountainous hill, on a road labeled “narrow road next 5 miles”, rather than around it. During a torrential downpour, it was stress I could have done without! During all that fun stuff, it never dawned on me that we were now in the National Forest, until we stopped and I realized I already had no phone signal, etc. That’s no big deal, except I never called Jess to tell her we wouldn’t be reachable for potentially 3 days. After setting up, we went for a walk and actually found a pay phone. I called her to tell her, so now its all good. We are sitting here listening to Judy Collins, writing and reading. Tomorrow we hope to do a 6 mile hike and then get the dinghy in the water….