New York, Syracuse - Sunday, June 16, 2013 last day of the Rally

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!!  To all the Dads out there, but especially to my Dad, Bob; my husband, Greg and all of our wonderful sons and sons-in-law and this year we need to add our grandson.  Our grandchildren and great-grandson have wonderful fathers and we are very thankful for that.

Greg participated in the special “Salute to Veterans” they had here at the Rally today.  It was really a very moving presentation to see all of the veterans in each of the branches of the armed service in formation behind the flag representing their branch.

 

This evening’s entertainment was “The Vogues”, a group from the sixties – right up our alley.  I think everyone in the audience could relate to those songs.  Even after all these years those guys still have great voices.  I didn’t get any pictures, the event had to be moved inside because of rain and there was no big screen.

I did manage to fix a special supper for Father’s Day.  Chicken Picatta (not sure I spelled that right – its chicken with a lemon pan sauce), green beans and homemade cranberry sauce.  Later on they had another fireworks display.  This one was much bigger than the one last night.  I’m a big fan of fireworks so that was a perfect way to end my evening.

 

We are packing up to be ready to travel to York, Pennsylvania tomorrow.

Syracuse, NY - June 14, 2013 Rally day two

The weather was great today, we split up and went to a couple of different seminars this morning.  I got a lot out of the one I attended, Greg not so much – could be he knew more about RVs than I did to begin with.  We attended a cooking show put on by one of the Food Network chefs, Bob Blumer who is the Surreal Gourmet. 

We participated in the “Largest Wedding-Vow Renewal World-Record Attempt” this afternoon.  The Guinness record now is 1087 couples.  There were a lot of people there, some wearing their original wedding dresses, but I don’t think we exceeded the world record – will let you know later.  They did lots of recording and documenting of the participants.  I was pleased there was a very nice ceremony for the renewal of vows, I was afraid that there would be too much emphasis on breaking the record. We did get someone to document we were there.

 

We decided the caterer was better the first time, we had a couple of Sweet and Salty bars this time.

Wayne Newton was the entertainment for this evening.  His voice is going, but as a musician he is still very good.

The post won’t be very long this evening, we discovered we had a small leak in one of the slide outs in the bedroom this morning.  Just like in a house, It’s hard to determine where the leak originated.  Greg is back there working on it now, I better go and at least offer to help.

New York, Batavia - Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Today is a transition day, we are leaving Niagara Falls and heading a little closer to Syracuse where we have to check in early in the morning.  We had a late breakfast and got out a jar of the homemade strawberry/rhubarb jam that Desira made, it was wonderful.  We are out of the heavier traffic areas of Niagara, Grand Island and Buffalo and are headed east on I-90.  We stopped at Flying J and topped off fuel and water and dumped tanks.  If you are traveling in an RV, you definitely need a Pilot/Flying J Advantage card.  It gives $.03 off on fuel and the dump station is only $5 instead of $10.

This picture is for those of you who wondered how we would get groceries.

 

 

We’ve stopped at the Wal-Mart in Batavia, NY and are taking advantage of their overnight parking (yes, we are eventually going to get to some campgrounds).  Greg thinks the retention pond we are parked next to has a bullfrog in it – maybe we won’t sleep with the windows open this evening.

I spent some time making adjustments to our blog site.  I looked at my Blogging for Dummies book again last night, it made more sense than the last time I read it.  I gave up the first time and decided to just try doing the blog on my own.  Obviously, I haven’t quite got it mastered.  Maybe with practice it will start looking as good as some of the others I have seen.

Greg did a little cleaning and polishing on the outside of the coach so we would make a nice first impression tomorrow.  Seems like no matter where we stop someone always comes up and asks about the lift we have on the back for the motorcycle.

New York, Niagara Falls - Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Well, we’ve only been traveling two days and already I don’t know where I am.  Yesterday I said we were in Buffalo – we went through Buffalo but we stayed the night in Niagara Falls at the Seneca Casino.  Our plan is to see Niagara Falls today.  Tour prices we saw yesterday ranged from $76 to $94 per person.  We were a little hesitant to pay that much so we inquired at the casino hotel front desk and they told us the Niagara Falls State Park was within easy walking distance so we took off – they even gave us free tickets to the trolley so we could take it if we got tired of walking.  We think those tickets were supposed to be for paying guests.  Since we are sitting in the parking lot free of charge, we went into the casino and promptly lost $31.  We don’t feel guilty about the free tickets any more.

 

Old Falls Street is a beautiful renovated brick street with lots of flowers and benches.  Looks like it is used for festivals and special events.  It goes from the casino right into the park.

 

Do you know that Niagara Falls State Park is the oldest state park in the nation?

 

 

The Niagara River was raging today, I could have set all day and just looked and listened to it.

 

We took the pedestrian bridge over to Goat Island to get a better look at the American Falls.  That is the pedestrian bridge in the background.
 

 

 

We didn’t have to ride the Maid of the Mist to get very wet at Horseshoe Falls, the mist was heavy and just as we walked up the wind changed, getting us pretty wet.

This is my favorite picture of the American Falls with the Horseshoe Falls in the background.

 

We saw everything we wanted to see and split a $3 piece of delicious fudge-much cheaper than tour prices.  However, that is a bit more walking than our usual mile around the campground.  Got a feeling we are going to be a little sore in the morning.

I think we’ll have some pan-seared tilapia filets and pasta with broccoli for supper this evening and call it a night.  We’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning getting a little closer to Syracuse.  We have a check in time for the Syracuse Good Sam Rally early on Thursday morning.

Buffalo, NY - June 10, 2013

I consider this my first day of retirement since this is the first day I would have had to go to work otherwise.  I woke up at 4:30 this morning raring to go – Greg told me to go back to sleep we weren’t going anywhere at 4:30 in the morning.

We headed out in the rain and it rained the entire day, so I managed to get caught up on my blog entries.  This is the view from my office window now. 

 

 

 

Going through Pennsylvania and New York on I-90 we noticed nothing but grape vines

 

growing in all the fields.  We saw one kind of puny looking corn field, but that was it.  I tried to snap some pictures from the RV but raindrops obscured the view.  If the day had been better, stopping at a winery or two might have been nice.  We’ll make a note for future reference that the New York wine country looks pretty interesting.

We stopped to make lunch at a rest stop—barbeque pulled pork sandwich and macaroni salad got us fueled up for the rest of the trip.  Speaking of fuel, our fuel mileage is doing pretty good considering we are fully loaded and have a full tank of water on board.  We are getting 7.8 to 8.0 miles per gallon.

This is getting ready to go over the Grand Island, NY bridge

We’ve stopped for the evening at Seneca Casino in Buffalo, NY taking advantage of their overnight parking.  We had a bit of a scare coming in, the GPS routed so that we had a 12’ overpass to go under, we thought we were just a bit over that, but we made it.  We are finding another way out.

We did splurge on the casino buffet this evening, it was pretty good, but I always end up thinking I could have made something better at home.  I do, however, highly recommend the chocolate/peanut butter tort.  We went to the casino with $40 and came back with $41.75, I call that a successful evening of betting.  We can even afford to go back tomorrow.  Greg was ahead by about $40 at one point but you know how it is, you can’t take it with you.

Greg is working on getting our TV system set up.  Since we aren’t in the campground with our dish on a tripod some adjustments have to be made.  Good thing he knows what he’s doing, I’m no help on that kind of stuff.  The TV just came on so he must have been successful.  We’ll be going to Niagara Falls tomorrow.  The weather is supposed to be better.