So long, Watkins Glen!

On our last day in Watkins Glen, we visited cemeteries.  First stop, Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira NY which is the resting place of Charlie's great-grandfather George Harris Horton. Woodlawn is a large shady cemetery with lovely tomb monuments for the more than 50,000 souls buried there.  We did not have a prayer of finding George's grave.  Without an online directory and no section markers in sight, we were out of luck.  Maybe if it had been a weekday we could have found someone with information...  But we did visit the gravesite of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka Mark Twain) whose location was well marked.

Next stop on the genealogy tour of cemeteries was Forest Lawn Cemetery.  This cemetery had a totally different feel, located on a nearly treeless hill outside town.  And instead of monuments, the gravesites are marked by metal plaques mounted flush to the ground.  I personally don't like that, although I understand that it makes cemetery mowing a lot easier.  But many of the markers are being overgrown from the dirt and grass that has settled on them over time, to the point that many are no doubt totally obscured.  And of course we again did not have the benefit of a directory with gravesite locations, so we walked up and down the rows in the hot sun for two 1/2 hours until we found the gravesites of grandpa Harold Harris Horton and great-grandma Teresa Horton.  Whew!


Other stops in Elmira included the hospital where Charlie was born and his first home.

Village of Hammondsport on the Keuka Lake

A lovely porch of a Hammondsport home

After we visited the grave of Charlie's ancestor who served in the Revolutionary War, we drove over to Keuka Lake and the village of Hammondsport, "America's Coolest Small City".  First stop -- a nice coffee shop and bakery.  Ahh, I enjoyed my latte. 

From there we started out on a walking tour through town.  While I was pointing out an architectural feature on one of the old houses, I tripped over an uneven sidewalk -- bam!  The good news is that, although scraped, neither my elbow nor my knee bled.  The excellent news is that I did not fall on my right knee with the replacement parts!!  I seem to be none the worse for the fall.



130 Beers!??  Wine's not the only drink in town!

We decided to cut short the walk and browse through some shops instead.  There was a nice quilt shop called Lake Country Patch Work that made me forget all about my fall.  Then we wandered into a shop where Charlie found a ceramic crock made in Elmira, his birthplace.  So we both enjoyed our visit to Hammondsport.

On the way back to the KOA, we stopped at an ice cream shop in Watkins Glen called The Great Escape Ice Cream Parlor run by the same sweet couple for more than 30 years.  Charlie ordered a banana split that was really big, so I had to help him finish it....  It was delicious.  Tonight's dinner?  salad


Ancestor and gravesites

We set out this morning with one primary goal -- to find the gravesite of one of Charlie's ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War.  His name is James Spencer and he is Charlie's 4th great grandfather.  He lived from 1736 to 1805.  The small cemetery where James Spencer, his wife Anna, and several other Spencers are buried is located just southwest of the intersection of Pre Emption Road and NY 54.

Although the cemetery is not being tended, someone (probably a local farmer) had mowed around the perimeter of the cemetery.  Otherwise, we may not have been able to locate it.  If a local history group doesn't step forward, these gravesites will be lost forever.


The cemetery holds the graves of a few Revolutionary War veterans, and each of their old gravestones have been supplemented with a cast metal marker as well so that the names are not lost to the continued ravages of time.  Also beside each gravestone is a Revolutionary War marker, and someone had placed an American flag to commemorate their service on this 4th of July.  Thank you.

4th of July in Watkins Glen, NY

Happy 4th of July!  We slept in a little later this morning before heading out to explore the area.
First, we went into downtown Watkins Glen in search of a coffee shop.  No luck.  Hey, entrepreneurs out there, there are some serious business opportunities in this town.  Foremost, how about a nice little coffee shop with wifi?  You would have business all day every day.  My first stop out of town is definitely going to be a coffee shop for a nice latte. 

Giving up on coffee and wifi, I enjoyed a wine tasting at the Pleasant Valley Winery's shop in town and bought a few bottles from the pleasant store manager.  From there, we drove through the historic district of the nearby town of Montour Falls and took a picture of Aunt Sarah's Falls. 

We then headed to Lakewood Vineyards.  Our hostess Erin was very knowledgeable and made the visit fun.  Thanks, Erin!  I especially liked their Pinot Gris 2012, Candeo, and Borealis 2010 Iced Wine.  Lakewood Vineyards is an award-winning winery and we left with a few more bottles of wine.





Being so close to the track, we decided to drive by and take a look. Couldn't see much, but there were a few cars on the track.

 

 

We took a boat ride on Lake Seneca to view the Watkins Glen fireworks.  It was a nice salute to those who fought to secure our Nation's independence and all those good citizens who battle to preserve those liberties today.

 

Watkins Glen, New York

Watkins Glen - Home of America's original road course and host of the Nascar Sprint Cup race and the Vintage Grand Prix.  For us, the attraction is not about racing but we'll go see the Watkins Glen International course tomorrow.  Who knows, maybe we'll go to a race on Friday.

It was a pleasant drive from Niagara Falls to Watkins Glen.  I was really impressed by the hundreds of acres of vineyards and the number of wineries we passed on our way here.   There are 50 wineries within an hour of Watkins Glen and more than 100 in the Finger Lakes region.  Pretty impressive.  We're missing the Wine Festival that will be held here in 2 weeks or so.  But I plan to persuade Charlie to join me in a wine tasting.

 

 

We're staying at the Watkins Glen KOA.  It has a nice indoor pool with a Jacuzzi that we took advantage of this afternoon.  Very pleasant.  So it has been a nice relaxing day, finished off by a T-bone steak and really sweet and tender corn.  A glass of wine is in order!

Maid of the Mist

This morning we enjoyed breakfast and headed to Niagara Falls.  When we arrived, we donned the mandatory blue rain parkas and boarded the Maid of the Mist.  It was so much fun!  I felt like a little kid running through a cold sprinkler who can't help putting her face in the spray.  I was impressed that there have been Maid of the Mist boat rides since 1848.  And the view of the falls from water level made them seem even more awesome.

Summer 2013 in New England -- History, Roots, and Chowder

Monday, July 1st

Welcome to Road Trip 2013! Our StarCraft camper is packed and we are off on another adventure, and we couldn't be looking forward to it more. Last year, we traveled over 8000 miles through New England, to Canada, across the northern states on US route 2 as far west as Idaho and back to Maryland. This year it's Charlie turn at genealogy hunting. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War to establish our Nation's independence and in the Civil War to preserve our Nation's union. So we will travel to the civil war battlefield of Antietam in Sharpsburg, Maryland, and on to the gravesites of some of his soldier ancestors, to towns holding fond childhood memories, to the awesome spectacle of Niagara Falls, to New York's Finger Lakes region, and to Mt Washington in New Hampshire. From there we will return to Maine, the state that stole our hearts last summer, to Mystic CT, and home by way of St Michaels MD where we will enjoy a traditional Maryland crab feast with good neighbors and friends. Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it?

We started our trip on June 29th within 2 hours of our planned departure time, and I consider that a success! Maybe next trip we'll also give the camper a more thorough maintenance check first. We had not one, but two, leaks in our water supply system. Not happy about that, but I was able to trace the water line and close valves to the offending component and we are using the auxiliary water storage tank instead of the city water supply. (Thanks to the mechanical sense I've gained from my dad, my brothers, and all those engineers I worked with for 30+ years!) So that problem is solved, but a part of the toilets water valve was also cracked (Honest, we did drain all the lines before winter!). Luckily, we were able to locate an RV shop today that had the part in stock -- fantastic! So we're ready to roll with all the bells and whistles working again. Woohoo!

So time spent fooling around with the leaks limited the time we had available to tour the Antietam Battlefield. But we were able to go to the visitors center and watch a nice movie and listen to a fantastic talk about the battle by one of the volunteers. We purchased the CD and started the auto tour, and will definitely go back to complete the tour. We stayed at the Hagerstown/Antietam KOA. It had a ton of attractions for families with young children. We thoroughly enjoyed breakfast there -- Swiss chard omelet with Swiss cheese - yum! But, really Verizon. Can you hear me now?? Why do you have no signal in the entire Hagerstown area?? I had better signal in the middle of Montana! Geez, don't you know I have a blog to do?  That evening we enjoyed a delicious meal in Sharpsburg at the Benders Tavern.


From there we drove, a good bit of the way through pouring rain (Nice driving, Charlie!),to the Kinzua East KOA. It is one of my favorite KOAs. The rest rooms and showers were spotless and the owner is really nice. My favorite part? The young boy, probably about 7 years old or so, standing on his front porch and waving at the people driving by in their cars. Yes, we both waved back.

Guess what. Canadian border patrol have no sense of humor. Charlie doesn't like Canada. But we did enter Canada and saw Niagara Falls and they are great. While there I had my first Starbucks of this trip to use up some Canadian currency. I liked it, a lot. Then we went to Best Buy and bought a new laptop. Tomorrow I'll buy a USB cable so I can download pictures from the good camera. Yea, that's right. The new computer doesn't have a port for a SD card. Sigh.

Time for a glass of wine. Next stop, Maid of the Mist -- boarding on the American side of the Falls!