Wilmington, NY and Crossing into Canada!

Sunday afternoon we drove through Lake Placid, NY. Very cool little town, but super busy. There was an Ironman going on so runners and riders were everywhere. After doing a quick drive through to site see, we made our way on into Wilmington, NY. Just a small town similar to Beech Mountain with a big ski hill. We did some mountain biking on their local trails Monday, nothing spectacular. Most of the trails were very rocky and short. Below are a few pictures from the ride.

After riding we drove into Plattsburg, NY to re-up on groceries at their local co-op and checked out Lake Champlain.

From here we headed on into Canada. Crossing the border was not too stressful, they did ask a lot of questions and really drilled us about what we were doing, why we were here, ect. We are currently staying at the KOA in Montreal...very ritzy for a campground! Tuesdays plan is to bike around Montreal, North Americas most bike friendly town, to do some sight seeing and then head into La Mauricie National Park. The plan is to spend a day exploring there and then a day exploring around Quebec City. We plan to be back in Maine on Thursday evening.

***because of limited internet access, pictures are not downloading. I will edit and add in pictures when we get better internet!

Weekend with the Wanglers

We spent the weekend on the Raquette River in NY with the Wangler family. We arrived on Friday morning and spent the day taking a boat ride to look around their neighborhood and having lunch at their house overlooking the river. We took a hike to look at the Stone Valley section of the Raquette River that is dam released and Will would love to kayak at some point. We did some afternoon tubing and took an evening paddle in the sea kayaks to check out Higley Flow State Park.

This morning, Saturday, We got up super early and drove to Clayton, NY to run a 5K. It was a benefit for the St. Lawrence river, Save the River Run. It went through the downtown area and along the river. I've been running a lot this summer, but Will went for it off the couch style....and actually did well. Will was actually in front of me for the first mile and half, then we ran together for a while, but I pulled ahead in the last half mile. First time I ever have bragging rights in beating him at something! I finished in 24:10, and 2nd in my age group and Will in 24:35, and 3rd in his age group.

We came back to camp this afternoon to participate in Higley Flows Pirate Day. Basically all the boats in the neighborhood go out with water balloons, squirt guns and hoses. They chase each other down and anyone with a flag is free game to hit. This event was very intense we all came in soaked! Frank transformed into a battleship captain, complete with my kayaking combat helmet.  We finished out the day with s'mores at the neighbors just before the evening showers arrived :)

Sunday finished the weekend with some water skiing for Will. Hasn't been water skiing in about 10 years, but it was just like riding a bike.  He rigged up a rope and had a great time!

Huge thanks to the Wangler family for feeding us, letting us do laundry, and being great hosts! We had such a fun weekend!!!!

Stillwater Reservoir Pictures

Stillwater Creek Reservoir

The past 2 days we did a pretty amazing overnight canoe trip to stillwater creek reservoir. We arrived Wednesday morning to some calm waters, but balmy temperatures. It was probably about 55 degrees when we started the paddle out, but got down to about 45 that night. We paddled about halfway up the reservoir to campsite 11 which was a nice sandy beach overlooking the lake. It took about 2 hours to get there. We unloaded, set up camp, and then paddled on out more to check out some smaller lakes on a hike and the creek that flowed into the lake. We built a nice fire to stay warm for the night and woke up to a beautiful sunrise the next morning over the lake. The paddle back was a bit rough this morning. Very windy and lots of white caps. Luckily the wind was in our favor and only once did I really think we might flip. All was well though and we made it back safely.

All the pics from the paddle are on the big camera, so until we get WiFi I am just posting a pic of the lake and a map I found online.

We are now camping on horseshoe lake and will make our way up to Clayton NY in the morning to spend the weekend with the wangler family.

Below you will also find a picture of horseshoe lake this evening and our view for doing dishes:) doesn't get much better than this!

Day 4!

Woke up this morning to more rain and lots of depressing news about upcoming education bills in NC... a little gloomy start to the day. We drove towards Ithaca, NY and stopped at Taughannoc Falls state park. We got to check out a few cool waterfalls...one being 45 feet taller than Niagara Falls. From here we drove on in to Ithaca and wandered around the downtown area for a while...very cool place and super bike friendly! We did a cyclocross ride this afternoon and road down to some of the state park areas below the city... a good bit of climbing, lots of gravel roads, and some pretty great scenery. After our ride we made our way to Lowville, NY and are currently camping in Whetstone Gulf State Park...we made it only after I navigated Will on some crazy back roads from listening to the GPS and not the atlas... definite lesson learned:)

New York!

Yesterday was another driving day....and of course more rain. We started out with a scout of Ohio Pyle falls and then the rain came. We drove all the way up to finger lakes state park in New York. We got a quick break from the rain to set up camp. The tsuga canopy is a life saver last tonight...and thanks to will's awesome tarp set up skills we stayed pretty dry. We made some pretty awesome pizza with leftover chanterelle mushrooms and naan all the way from stickboy bakery in boone! 

Rain.Rain.Rain.

We had plans to do some mountain biking in Fayetteville, WV this morning after we piddled around camp for a while, but the weather kept its everyday summer pattern and....rained. We decided to keep heading north, but not before stopping at the highest steel arch bridge east of the Mississippi. From here we journeyed to Ohiopyle State Park in PA. Definitely a cool little tourist town with lots of bike paths and a few trails. We didsome mountain biking and then wandered through some of the scenic bike paths overlooking the middle youghiogheny river. Hoping to be in NY by tomorrow evening!

Day 1...driving

Getting off and on the road definitely took longer than anticipated! We loaded this morning, made a stop in Brevard to drop off our sweet cats in Brevard... super big thanks to our moms for keeping them. We made it up to the New River gorge (I even drove the truck for about an hour!) and are camping in Cunard, WV. Here are a few pics from our short journey today.

A little background....

When Will and I talked about some sort of honeymoon trip back when we were planning a wedding, we knew it would have to happen in the summer. We didn't really want anything typical, but some type of road trip to a destination neither of us had been. We agreed on New England and Canada. Now Will has been on several road trips with friends where he lived like a dirty boy out of his car....I was not so keen on this and was fairly certain that 3 weeks of tent camping and minimal showers would be difficult for me. We both became interested in teardrop campers because they were similar to a tent on wheels...I would at least have a bed to sleep in :) One December evening we were just perusing craigslist and while most teardrops were way out of our price range, but I ran across this little gem....or at least it didn't look so bad in the pictures. I was very confident that Will would have it looking great in no time. Little did we know the amount of work or carpentry skills we would be learning in the next few months (Well, the amount of carpentry skills Will would learn while I handed tools, cut boards, and nailed things). Here are a few snapshots of the process.

Our big adventure starts tomorrow...so excited!!!