Fall Foliage

Driving through Ticonderoga, Couldn't pass up this shot when I stopped for gas

Later Trips

haven't posted in a while. But I did do some travelling up north, all the way to Lake Ontario for that matter. Also, in addition to the new Ticonderoga page, I drove back home from there using NY 9N, on a rainy fall day. Except for the potential of a lot of congestion in the height of the season. NY 9N from Lake George to Ticonderoga then Lake Champlain is a great drive, and direct too.

Here is a shot from a deck of a closed eatery near Hague on NY 9n:


Here is a shot of the town park and dock in Hague Center.

Every Exit and Rest Area Has a Picture

Exit 42, Last Real Exit Before Canada, on US 11 in Champlain

Every Exit and Rest Area Has a Picture

From my recent foray into North Country from Plattsburgh to the Canadian border & Champlain, I now have a picture of every Exit and rest area from Albany to Canada. I know, sounds nerdy & obsessive, but after five & one half years it makes this site more complete.
See Exits on Northway

Point Au Roche Rest Area, last one before Canada

Up In North Country Now, Plattsburgh

And it is mercifully cool and green, totally reassuring when I hear it was in the 90s in Jersey & Philadelphia today. Too cool even for me, I got a little sick as my body couldn't handle it all at once. But I am covering the Northway today all the way to Canadian border, snapping pictures of each exit, Village of Champlain and sights alongside. Saws these big bovine friends casually grazing today:


They taste good too!

New Construction & Bottleneck on Northway

As I stated on my site, the southbound span over the Schroon River, just south of Exit 24, MP 68.3, has been removed, to be replaced soon. This is between the Warrensburg and Bolton Landing exits. So all traffic necks down into one lane each way. So on high traffic days, like Friday afternoons and evenings northbound, Sunday afternoons and evenings southbound, prepare yourself for a possible 20 minute to a half hour wait to cross over the remaining span. This is just up the road from the infamous 2004 flash flood that washed out both road beds of I-87 as well as East and West Schroon River Roads below.

Shot from the Exit 24 Overpass Looking South

Added a new page for Ticonderoga

I had been planning on doing this for years. So this weekend I made a couple of trips down to Ticonderoga from Schroon Lake so I can officially get my new Ticonderoga page up and running. It was even a shade greener down in the Lake Champlain Valley than in the rest.


Drove up to Crown Point too, to see the temporary free ferry and the start of the new bridge too.

But don't worry, Homeland Security is running this ferry service. We all know for ages Al Qaeda has had its heart set on disrupting the all important lower Lake Champlain link between the most important state in the nation and New York. But with our boys in blue on point, Osama beware!

Great Weekend, Great Weather

Great Weekend, Great Weather

Spent the weekend up in the Schroon Lake area, the weather was great. Hot enough in the days but cool at night. No need for air conditioning, which I don't have anyways in my new used car anyways. Tons of people around, enjoying themselves boating, tubing, swimming in the lake and rivers. Even the bugs were on the decline, much fewer little pests alight to make life miserable for us warm blooded animals.

Some Green Thoughts

Due to the intensely wet weather we are having, for the last 2 years, it is truly green out there. Which is good to a point, if you don't mind clouds of skeeters or mold everywhere.
Even though I do a lot of driving, I try to stay a little greener. At home, I will park maybe a half mile short and walk the rest of the way, or at least park, head out, at the end of the lot next to the exit I plan on using. A few hundred yards less on each trip saves a couple miles a week and gives you a lot of good exercise. Also, it saves your car from those piddling stop and go driving or annoying scrapes. When I am out in the country, I usually just park on the right of the shoulder, on the side I am going on, for each stop. Once again, not much in the way of distance but it cuts out more wasteful maneuvers. Also, I am a fiend for timing traffic lights or at least putting as little power as necessary to get to a red light.
Also, my preventive maintenance, especially that ignition coil pack I put in last year, really have paid off in gas mileage and performance, I have a new(er) car, a 97 Nissan Sentra with a good small motor that I want to put on the road. Hopefully that will get me good mileage too.

Status Report

Haven't been up to too much. But I added another NYRoutes.com site, the Farmers Daughters Drive In of Saratoga in Saratoga, the town farm part on NY Route 29 towards Schuylerville. It is a cool little drive in ice cream sandwich place that has a rabid clientele of ice cream junkies.

We Got Snow

Lot's of Wet Heavy Snow

We finally got some snow around here, better late than never.

Friendly Signage

This was spotted at the end of a driveway leading to some horse paddock near Saratoga. Usually people aren't this friendly and kind around here:

Then again, last October I was camping out around Old Forge, at the end of this town road by some fish and game club. Mind you, I was on the public side of their gate (the club btw leases their land from the town, so hardly very private), camped in the back of this clearing. Yet some fat arsehole in his oversized pick up had to put on his best redneck act and force me out because his lame club leased all the land from the river north. Like I was really taking up any space that he or his mates were trying to use or this was his own land. Don't get me wrong, people aren't usually like this up here. Unfortunately, you can find types like him everywhere.

Winter Doldrums

Winter Doldrums

Haven't been too active with my blogging. I heard that blogging seems to be on the wane now with the rise of mindless Twitter tweets and other superficial social stuff. Not that blogging is some sort of high literature, but TWEETS seem really dumbass and trite. I have spend a lot of time up north last fall, but little action on the web scene, even though I have a much better camera now. The weather, like today, seems perverse, 2 feet plus snow in Washington DC but nothing here. Or we get snow, then it rains. At least we have been spared ice storms.