Friday, August 24, 2018 - Travel to Westport, NY

Friday, August 24, 2018 - Travel to Westport-NY, Barber Homestead Park, Ferry to Vermont?

We took our time getting around this morning since we will only travel approximately 200 miles today.  We left Spruce Creek Campground near Salisbury, NY at 9:55am, however as we drove by Steve and Lynn's site, Steve was outside, so we stopped to visit with him for 15 minutes or so.  I gave them one of our cards and he suggested I friend Lynn on Facebook.  (Steve or Lynn, if you are reading this I'm unable to find Lynn's FB page - have her try mine at Cheri Blackledge Peine).  We sure enjoyed meeting and visiting with them.  Maybe we'll cross paths again someday.

We took local highways 28, back to 29, then 5 before we reached I-90 and headed east where we intersected with 29 again to just bypass Saratoga Springs, NY. 

However, Bobbie (our GPS) routed us right through downtown - which was packed with people, due to the horse races going on here this weekend.  I took a few pictures of all of the action!  

Downtown Saratoga Springs, NY

Leaving Saratoga Springs, we took I-87 north towards Westport, New York.  

We saw many loads of logs like on the truck in the picture above.  Made me think of my son Marc and his woodworking.  

Lake Hudson - part of the Erie Canal.

This is one of the service areas on I-87.  They have recently opened it for partial use.  It's a new building and it is really beautiful.  

Entering Adirondack Park - a six million acre state park of public and private land.

It wasn't too much further until we would take Exit 31 - whoops, it was supposed to be Exit 31, but Dean and I had a lack of communication here.  Bobbie (our GPS) said to take 9N to Westport, but there is a low bridge on that road.  I told Dean there was another road that veers off to the northeast (59) that we could take instead to get us to local highway 22 that would take us into Westport, but he missed that little snippet of information.  Fortunately we didn't have to go too far down the road to Exit 32, where we were able to turn around and come back to Exit 31.  It worked just fine, and it only added an additional 8-10 miles to our trip so it wasn't a problem.  Overall it was a very easy driving day with beautiful views of the Adirondack Mountain Areas.  As we drove local highway 22 we saw our first view of Lake Champlain, a very large lake that is located between northern New York and Vermont.  In fact the state line runs down the middle of the lake.  The lake extends into Canada, not too far from Montreal. 

On the way to our campground

Barber Homestead Park

We arrived at Barber Homestead Park, located on Lake Champlain, near 3:00pm. The owner, Charlie led us to our pull through site, #46 that has full hook-ups with 50 amp service.  They have free wi-fi throughout the park.  We are only here two days so we will just use over the air channels versus putting the dish out.  Charlie told us they would have a bonfire tonight and a d-jay tomorrow night - both at the shelter, located one road over from where we are parked.  He also pointed where two sets of stairs are located that we can take down to the water.  The park is located on a bluff overlooking the lake.  We will take a walk down to the lake sometime Saturday.  

We were surprised how warm it was here - 83 degrees when we arrived.  We were disappointed after enjoying 70-75 highs and 59 overnight temperatures in the Salisbury, NY area.  We slept with the windows open both nights and I had to use the fireplace furnace to warm Bentley up both mornings.  Since we are so close to Lake Placid, and Whiteface Mountain we expected it to be cooler here as well.  Unfortunately, we found we are at a much lower altitude in Westport than we were at our last stop.  I'm sure that is a plus for those who visit the lake.

After getting everything set up and relaxing for an hour or so, we drove to Essex, NY to check out their ferry system.  We plan to take the ferry across Lake Champlain Sunday when we leave here.  It is a 3 mile ride across the lake on the ferry, which would leave us only a 44 mile drive from Westport, NY to Fairfax, VT.  The attendant we spoke with said we need to be there about 15 minutes before the ferry is scheduled to leave.  By the time we finished talking to the attendant, four cars were already in line and it would be at least 45 minutes before the next ferry would leave, so we may arrive early and try to be first in line.  It might be a long wait, but at least we'll be at the water's edge where we can watch activity on the lake.  We always enjoy that.  (Update:  Winds are supposed to be brisker Sunday, so now our plan is to drive a few miles south of here where we can cross a bridge over Lake Champlain.  It makes the drive to Fairfax about 76 miles, versus over 100 if we drive north.)

See the blue dot towards the bottom near Vergennes - that is the location of our campground for August 24-26; Friday-Sunday morning.  Fairfax is located southeast of St. Albans Town, Vermont.

After returning to Bentley, I took a short nap (as in I fell asleep in my chair) before I made dinner.  At 8:00 I remembered our next stop is at a campground for 4 days without a sewer hookup.  I realized I better get some laundry done - one load tonight, one in the morning - and the same thing on Saturday night and Sunday morning before we leave.  At least I won't have to worry about it again for several days.  Needless to say, with my nap, laundry and working on the blog we did not make it to the bonfire.

Check back to see what we find to do tomorrow.