Our Adirondack Adventure Caravan

After a steamy Friday night, the hot, humid weather has left us! This is the first night using the Air Conditioning for us in our Airstream. It was rather nice to escape the heat! The skies were clear, Hurricane Earl although initially packed some serious winds was loosing strength and heading off the coast of New England with no impact to us here in New York. At the Group breakfast gathering we went over the Plan of the day. We were to meet up @ 10:30 at Lock #5. Perfect, we could sneak out and grab an Earth cache at a Basalt (Lava) quarry before taking the trip up through the locks. It was very cool to have a chance to see this! We climbed all over it looking for the fossilized sails, no luck though.

We headed of the the parking area for Lock #5 to meet up with the group. We were still early so we had time to grab 2 or 3 more caches near the entrance. I dropped Susan off and went to park the truck, she had made the find long before I hiked back. Off to the next cache we were amazed at how cool and dry the weather was! We got near the cache and started searching, After a minute I read one of the logs from past attempts, (our GPS stores that info to use on the hunt) Just as I read aloud the last attempt did not find it because there are BEES at the cache! Not in time, just as I did, she yells, found it, OUCH! Susan was stung twice, dropped the container and hightailed it out, back to the trail. Now, as luck would have it Susan is allergic to bees. We made a hasty walk back to the truck to get some Benadryl, hoping we had some in our cache bag, called Pam to let her know we may need to head out to get some just as we found it. We were in luck. Like all good cachers we noticed there was one more and seeing the group was a few minutes away, I went for it while Susan kept a look out for the others.

The stars were aligned today! The Lock tender allowed anyone in the group to ride the lock! How cool is that! It is pretty impressive to see the elevation difference and all that water being held back!

Our group of 14, which is just enough to receive a 10% discount gathered and waited for the history lesson of the Lock system.

The sky was clear with a shifting wind, which made it a challenge for the captain to maneuver the boat out from the dock. What a grand view!

The boat was paddle powered, we figured the rhythm would lull Susan to sleep as the Benadryl kicked in, not a chance!

As we made our way up and back we saw some really nice, private farmland that borders the lock/river. It is not hard to imagine the mules plodding along with a small barge in tow. The tow path is overgrown now but still used as a hiking trail. There is a good example of why the lock system was necessary as we passed by a waterfalls the reminded us of Bogart’s African Queen Movie. We do not want to take that route! That is an 8’ drop!

The clouds moved in and the breeze felt just great! When we arrived at the lock, there was a small boat waiting to pass through. Several took the time to watch as we headed back to do some Happy Hour prep.

After a quick lunch we re-grouped and caravanned over to the Battlefield Memorial. As luck would have it there was a bonus for us, a “Virtual” cache place in 2003. No log to sign but it has you find answers that give you a history lesson.

Once there we all went inside to see the museum, Pam was promptly ushered out with Kelly, no dogs allowed. Some of us watched the 15 minute movie describing the battles here while others sat outside and enjoyed the weather. Note the sign.

We wandered around for a while and tried to imagine the horror of having to endure the hardships the separation from England had caused not only colonists, but the solders that tried to reclaim the colony. Incredible views!

We each broke off to follow the access road to all the historic sights. Along the way we stopped and enjoyed the views and read and in some places listened to the narrations of the battles. Some of us were treated by wildlife along the roadway. If you look careful you can see the mom, just inside the wooded area.

At one point, one of the more radical of the group (only kidding Gail) was approached by a park ranger, seems allowed Bilbo and Rufus to run free, and was issued a warning, thankfully not a summons for the offense! About ½ way through, Susan was losing steam, so we had to forgo the Smiley we would earn for completing the gauntlet.

Happy Hour

Saturday night we had the duty for Happy Hour, we knew it was going to be a full day so we decided earlier in the week to make a few hardy appetizer’s so those that wanted, could call this the evening meal. We made ready Maple Smoked Salmon, non nut Cheese ball thingie with Vanilla wafers, some chips and dips and SLIDERS! At the appointed time (what ever that was) folks started to show up with tables and chairs. Everyone but Gail and the dogs, so we just figured she had gotten another warning and would be along soon. We thought it went over very well. We will find some Hamburg for Gail and make some special for her this week.

After the festivities were over, just at dusk a few of us wanted to go for a walk in the night air. So we climb in the vehicles, Jim, Marguerite, Tex , Katie, Gail and the dogs along with us and headed back over to the Island at Lock # 5. There just happened to be a few caches there so we could hike with a mission. Thank goodness we decided to grab this one at night, what a great trail to walk in the dark. Quick finds, kept us moving along the third one turned into an adventure. We headed off to the point after making the find (the cache there is gone missing) and enjoyed the view. Headed back to the truck, there were 5 of us not including 2 dogs by now, Tex and Katy made their way back earlier. We saw snakes and frogs on the trail. We chatted and leisurely made our way back. When I got to get in the truck, I checked for my phone, Uh Oh! I lost it in the bushes! Well, Gail had a cell, the dogs were beat, so we borrowed a cell from (Windy Dollar). She headed back to the Camp Ground and we went in search of the phone. Not at the first two locations we KNEW it would be at the third, I mean really, the cache is called Friendly Bear. As we approached, just like we did on the previous two coordinates, we dialed up my number! BINGO! There it was a few feet away from the cache glowing and ringing! WHEW! What an adventure with a happy ending!

Day 2