We spent one night near Jamestown, New York. There’s not really much there to speak of, but it’s where Lucille Ball was from so we took a quick tour through the downtown museum in her honor. It was the first time we needed to find city parking for the 50 foot rig. Not exactly painless, but not impossible either. Nor is it impossible to back the entire rig down a single lane road for half a mile in a downpour. That was the lesson learned after believing the GPS over the “Dead End” street sign.

We managed to arrive undented to Letchworth State Park. The place is huge, about 18 miles long. At one end is the campground with about 300 sites. Really, it could have been mistaken for a shantytown. The park scenery is beautiful though, with all its shale-walled gorges and tumultuous waterfalls. I don’t know if it was because it rained a ton the day before, but all of the rivers looked more like chocolate milk than water. Biking here was tough, with all the steep grades. Many campers opted to rent the park’s electric cars, which were really just golf carts that resembled Orkan spaceships.

Four Mile Creek State Park was our next New York home. Its location is beautiful (on Lake Ontario’s shoreline) and centrally located to both Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Thanks to my Buffalo-native buddy, Dave, we knew to head straight to the birth place of Buffalo Wings — The Anchor Bar. What can I say…the wings are great! Meatier and crispier than any other I’ve had, and I’ve had a lot. We also visited the hip and arty Elmwood Street district. We liked it. There was a disco ball hanging from one of the streetlights. Niagara Falls was, of course, stunning. We hitched a ride on the boat that takes you right to the base of them. I think the weirdest thing is that toward the top of the falls, the water looks chlorine-blue. Sort of like the water that cascades through mini-golf waterfalls. Within minutes of leaving the boat, the big power blackout hit—glad we didn’t opt for the elevator ride behind the falls.

When we arrived at New York’s Adirondack Mountains, we checked into the shwag campground that put us in what they termed an “overflow site,” but what was really the mud puddle between their pool and recreation hall. What the h?! We dropped the trailer off and drove out to Saratoga Springs which is a neat, upscale town with BIG, restored buildings that house neat, upscale chain stores (Eddie Bauer, Banana Republic…). Lots of New York City folk here. The next day, Holly and I drove to the middle of Adirondack Park. The mountains themselves are pretty cool. But the thing about them is that they’re really, really dense, with few clearings. So although you sorta go there to see the forest, there’s too many trees blocking your view. Yup, can’t see the forest for trees. It was the same on the path that we hiked, but we did see quite an assortment of mushroom varieties.