Some cool Route 3 shots from last spring on the way to Plattsburgh

It was April 24 and there was still snow on the ground, The mountain is Whiteface, btw

Last Couple of Trips to Upper Fulton and Lower Hamilton Counties

for allegedly turkey hunting but I did clean up my favorite campsite pretty well.

Notice the new huge Stewarts on the corner of Main & Bridge Streets, the skate park and the big over done Northville Lake Placid trailhead sign in downtown Northville

New Adirondack Road Site

This should really knock their socks off, NY Route 3, from Plattsburgh to Watertown. I already covered a lot of the road, from the Plattsburgh to Star lake on my NY 30 & Adk I-87 sites, so there is nothing very new or original. But I always really liked 3 as well as I might be able to drum up some Saranac Lake business with this venture. I plan on going up tomorrow and snap off a gazillion shots to spruce all my Dak sites up

Last Chance to check Out Railroads on Parade in Pottersville Tomorrow

They are going to close unless they can find a new backer. So if you like elaborate model railroad layouts, Monday is the last day they will be open See their site

The Leaves Are Coming Down

Between the recent rain and upcoming frosts, the last of the hardwoodtree leaves will be down in a week or two. Beautiful day yesterday as I took the Lake Desolation Edinburgh Bridge Route to my fave hideway in Benson via Northville Village. But the rain blew in last night, Honestly I planned on staying at least a whole day and half there without driving anywhere but the rain made me get in my car and go back down to Northville and Mayfield, where I am now working off the Mobile Station's wi-fi in comfort, mobile office. Also doing some business, half hearted, but I just don't want to get wet mucking around in the bush. Tomorrow is supposed to be cool and dry, so I am toughing it out here on 30 till the weather breaks.

New Project

I extended the NYRoute28.com through the Catskills from Kingston and Woodstock to Margaretville. See Catskill Mountain section of NYRoute28.com

Spark Plugs

I do most of my own auto repair and maintenance with an eye for economy, thrift and most important, gas mileage. So if you change your plugs, use Bosch ® Platinum 4's. The 4 is for the 4 electrodes on each plug. They are simply the best plugs and not too expensive. You will soon recoup the extra 5 dollars in gas saving and performance.

Remember when you change plugs to follow these simple steps:

1. Twist the plug's boot around a bit on the old plug to loosen it, then gently pop the boot off the plug's top
2. Remove the old plug with the appropriate socket, usually 5/8"
3. Start the new plug by hand just by twisting the socket extension so the threads catch easily
4. Put a little Vaseline or similar in the plug boot to keep out water, make it click in better and prevent them from sticking to the plug the next time you do this
5. Make Sure the contact on the boot clicks into the top of the plug, Twist it around a few degrees each way to make sure
6. If hte wires look old or the boots are shot, get new wires too

Still Blogging

Haven't touched this blog in a long time. Which is sad. I blame Facebook, like my https://www.facebook.com/AdirondackNorthway for my AdirondackNorthway.com site. I also do blogs for SEO purposes to boost up various customer's sites I do. But I have been blogging for 12+ years and don't plan on quiting

Up North Last Week

Drove all the way up to Plattsburgh and along the bay there. Thank god all the summer heat is gone. Here is a shot from the Lincoln Pond Rest Area at Exit 32 in Lewis

Just for reference, it is one way both ways at Exit 38, MP 155 in Plattsburgh and at exit 26 MP 78 in Pottersville while they replace the northbound spans

Finally Got Away Again

trying to escape the agonizing humidity and rain. I went out for a few days to Schroon then Tupper Lake. Well one thing good is that the foliage is a dark, healthy green from all the rain

Back on the Road, To Lake George

Stayed over in Lake George last week at the Nassau Motel, , my friend Ray lets me stay a few days here and there. Finally got some business up there after all these years. I guess I was too rustic for the boater crowd there, but off season you get to meet some of the more regular types. So I am going back there tomorrow for some more business, sites and even some ethernet wiring where I can use up some of the hundreds of feet of CAT 5A cable and connectors I have laying around here. I feel good now about this year. It looks like it won't be so murderously hot and dry like last year. Maybe the economy will tick up some more and things will perk up business wise

Added More Facebook Pages

I added FB pages for both my NYRoute28.com and NYRoute30.com sites,
See http://www.facebook.com/pages/Centraladirondacktrailcom/188619321279567
and http://www.facebook.com/NYRoute30com
Why not? Back in 2002, blogs were hot potatoes, now the action is there.

Latest Trips

Been a while since I last posted. Been on a lot of short trips up north and even north west and even to Old Forge/ Lot's of swimming and sunning in this summer heat, Thank god the drought broke. Though the water levels are still low, starting from the lame snowfall last winter Here are some good in-the-water shots of Piseco Lake

Also climbed big tall Hackensack Moutain in Warrensburg yesterday and took a good telephoto shot of the Adirondack Northway Exit 23

Piseco Lake

Latest Adventures

Haven't been very active in blogging lately. I have my Adirondack Northway Facebook page but personally I like blogs even though there is not much traffic compared to my FB page.
The season got off to an early start due to warm weather, but the last month haven't even been up there once. Went back to my old haunt in Benson due to a new customer's site I re-created AC Miller Southern Adirondack Real Estate, Homes, Properties, Lots

Lake Algonquin

NB Northway Span Over the Schroon River

They Also Finished the NB Northway Span Over the Schroon River

New NB Schroon Span

Just south of Exit 24 at Milepost 68

Latest Trips

Crown Point Lake Champlain Bridge.

The unseasonable warm and dry weather gave me an early start this year. Last month I hung out in the Schroon River area for a while, finally venturing over to Vermont so I can get some shots of the new Crown Point Lake Champlain Bridge.

Ruts

The campsite there was in good shape but very soggy underneath. Pulling out of there I dug some ruts but went back to fill them in a bit

Laying on my back on top of the hill

Still Kicking

I am still alive and kicking and so are my sites. Last week the so called hurricane brought a flurry of activity to my Adirondack Northway Facebook page. Ironically for a storm was supposed to devestate the coast, Eastern Adirondacks and especially Vermont got washed with floods.

Been Busy Lately

Traveling all around the Dak's
Earlier this month I was up in the wild forest along the Hudson north of Lake Luzerne. There are a bunch of primitive campsites along the dead end road, on the uphill side. We picked on fairly decent one, #9. There was a memorial plaque there for a young woman who died last year. Slowly the story came back to me. She was campinig there in a tent, when a wind storm blew a tree over on here tent, right there in our site, and killed her. Real sad. A peaceful weekend doing nothing dangerous but one of mother nature's more innocuous creations falls on her. The place was okay but the already flooded out and rutted road had to put up with the rafting bus making a trip every half hour up the road to drop more tubers off to float down.

More Changes

I ditched my old hosting account, Canaca, which I used for the last 7 years. They had become unreliable and expensive. Now you can get accounts for 6 dollars a month with unlimited databases and domains for the same money I was paying for 10 add-on domainss and 5 databases on an unreliable server. I took the time to change over the main domain name to www.AdirondackNorthway.com from the original www.AdirondackNorthway.net. So now www.AdirondackNorthway.net is a redirect to www.AdirondackNorthway.com instead of the reverse. Also moved the NYRoute28 and NY Route 30 sites over too. I got a domain to go with that new hosting account, highpeaksbyway.com, which will soon become NY 73 and 86 to Lake Placid

Ballston Spa

Got a new page on my Northway site for Ballston Spa. All these years and I kept telling myself I would add it since it is right down the road from Saratoga Springs. Nothing too major, but what the heck?

Still Going

Up in Lake George Last Weekend

Took the weekend off to cash in on some free nights at my friend's motel, the Nassau in Lake George, no not in the lake, but the Town of Lake George. Took a great drive through Horicon to NY 8 then over Graphite Mountain down to Hague. It was blissfully low key as in this weather even the lumbering is at a stand still due to the thaw and mud, with NO tourist save a few day tripper to some party in the village.

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.

Various Trips this Fall

Though I haven't been posting, and spent a good chunk of time at home in this pathetic roadway of a town, I have done a lot of travelling this fall. I just got back from Tupper Lake, of course my wife's venerable old 97 Camry decided to pop either the crank or the camshaft seal today in the cold, so I left a wake of oil like a crippled ship all the way back home. But they are going to re-open Big Tupper Ski Resort the day after Christmas, if they get some more snow. I got some pictures, mainly mediocre, but I got a nice shot of Tupper Lake lake all frozen over at sunset.

Sorrry For the Hiatus

Though I have plenty of work here at home, really boring but fairly good pay, I have been doing a lot of travel in the last FOUR months that I neglected to post anything on this blog. Though I did update the living hell out of all three of my sites, including centering all the pages contents in the center as well as renaming pages and chasing down tons of broken links with my nifty simple free Xenu link checker program.
There were also plenty of trips up north too, for camping, hunting, business and general escape from reality of life around here. Labor Day weekend I did a road trip up to Sackets Harbor which is west of Watertown on Lake Ontario. My old time customers from Tavern at Schroon Lake have a bunch of restaurants like the Nottingham Chop House on Wolf Road, They had three up in Sackets Harbor which is a nice little lake side resort yacht type of village that was home to the US Navy back when British run Canada was an enemy. Or in the early 1800s in the days of wooden ships and iron men. So do we have wooden men now, or fiberglass carbon fiber ones crewing ships?

Well I had fun shooting pics in all three restaurants as well as coming up with some better designs that have a management section where one can change the whole menu or the store hours from a back end, see Goodfellos. The new Nikon camera got a baptism then, for some better shots than that lame old olympus I had for years. I also camped out in some farmers field for a night, asked him, as well as skulked around Watertown on the NY 3 strip. Being on NY 3, it was natural that I double back to Tupper for at least some time.