Watkins Glen is such a nice little town. After breakfast and a quick walk with Harper we set off toward downtown. Our campsite is a bit further from town that where we had parked the day before but the walk was very enjoyable. On our way out of the park that morning we met a guy from Cape Cod, Skip, and his dog Duncan. He was a hiker and was headed for the hills. We chatted for quite a while. We walked over the bridge past the Walmart and toward Decatur Street. We made the turn onto Decatur St at the corner of Lafayette Park and passed some wonderful homes.

There are some spectacular homes in Watkins Glen

Carol chatted with a woman who's yard was in full bloom and the flowers were stunning. Th houses along their street were spectacular. We even saw two churches directly across the street from each other, where you could walk out the door of one and directly into the front door of the other. We made our way to the International Motor Racing Research Center. Here we met a most enthusiastic race fan who was the director of the center. They had a fantastic 1967 Lotus sitting in the center of the floor and all sorts of model race cars.

We watched a short film, the 25 anniversary of racing in Watkins Glen. The film was made in 1972, so lots of long sideburns and things that would not be politically correct in todays world. It was fascinating to see how racing had changed in this 25 years which is now another almost 50 years removed. We picked up some souvenirs and and brochures. We walked over to a CVS and a grocery store for some supplies and then back to the Gorge.

Back to the Gorge at the State Park for lunch

We sat on a bench at the gorge and had lunch. Sandwiches and chicken tenders, Harper loves chicken tenders. We then walked back down through town to the waterfront where the tour boats dock. We popped in and out of several shops and slowly made our way back to the campground by mid afternoon. I needed to stop at Walmart to pick up a card reader for my laptop. I got a new laptop recently and Apple had decided to take the built in card reader out of the machine..so now I had to buy a new card reader. Don't you just hate it when things change.

Carol need so pick up some pet food, and since we can't take Harper into the store, I told her I would find out where it was and that should make her trip into the store a bit more direct. I asked a lady in a Walmart vest where I could find the pet supplies. Exasperated she said to me: 'In the Pet Department!' Stunned I felt bad asking where the pet department was. "Back in the back of the store under the sign that says Pets" - I told her in my most sarcastic voice ;' Sorry I didn't know where the Pet Department was." I immediately felt bad but damn. I made my way to the electronics department to find a card reader, and couldn't so I asked the young man working there where the card readers are. "Right where the SD Cards are" he replied. Now I felt really stupid as I didn't know where the SD cards were either. I said "OK, where are the SD Cards" Another exasperated employee. I got a curt "Two aisles over" I began to wonder about the skillsets Walmart must be looking for when hiring. I met Carol back outside with Harper, told her where the Pet food was and in she went. When she came back out she said they asked if she wanted a bag. They said they haven’t had any since last October, but if she wanted to buy one they were five cents, but then said that they would just rip and fall apart. Not the best customer service at the Watkins Glen Walmart.

Back at the Doodle we hung out a bit, rested up from our walk which turned out to be about six miles and generally just hung out for a couple of hours. I ordered a pizza and some eggplant Parmesan from Pudgies Pizza and began to make a fire in the fire ring. The wood was nice and dry and it caught right away. The smoke kept the bugs at bay and Carol and I settled down to some cribbage. I think I won this time. Soon the food arrived and we had a good supper and retired to the fire. Skip came by again and we swapped more stories about travel, dogs and boating and hiking.

On the New York Thruway, along the Mohawk River

Then just as we were relaxin by the fire the new neighbor that had pulled in in the middle of the afternoon came over asking; 'How do you start a fire, I tried and it didn't work' This was said with a heavy accent. It turns out he is visiting the US from the Middle East, rented an RV, and has never started a fire in his life. When I looked into his fire ring he had three large logs there which he had tried to start with a match. No paper, no sticks, no kindling. I grabbed my hatchet and proceeded to split a couple of his logs down to kindling size and asked him to get me some paper to help start the fire. He returned with a roll of toilet paper, unrolled a handful and handed it to me. I was really laughing inside but he was dead serious. I stuffed the toilet paper under the kindling and asked for a match. He said he would start the fire after the kids go to bed, that he was planning to cook some steaks over the fire. In the morning as we were getting ready to leave I could see that he had never tried to start the fire...

We pulled out of the rv park and headed back into town to the start line on Franklin Street, of the original Watkins Glen race course. This is the 6.6 mile course used from 1948 until 1952 when a spectator was killed by an errant driver. Go! We drove the course past the White House "S", under the rail road bridge, over the stone bridge and around Archy Smith's Corner, down the railroad straight, through Friars Corner and down into town again around the big bend and back to the finish line. Our time 14 minutes 45 seconds, likely not a track record. The fastest recorded time for this course is 82 mph which I figure a lap time of 9 minutes 2 seconds... we likely averaged 35 mph. At the end of the course we pulled into a gas station to fill up for the day and got behind a guy filling racing 7 gallon gas cans and loading them into the back of his car. We learned that the track is mostly supported by car clubs and that the Porsche club had the track for a few days....he was driving a Porsche Cayenne. We took a scenic route up the west side of Seneca Lake, passing one vineyard after another. We will have to revisit this area again. There was an amazing number of vineyards along route 14 as we headed north. We stopped at the visitor center in Geneva, the wind was howling all morning buffeting us up the road and when Carol open the door the wind took it and broke the gas piston at the bottom of the door that holds the door open. This is the third time that this has happened since we owned the Doodle. Using our apps and after trying a couple of auto supply houses, we found the there was a Camping World just off the thruway near Syracuse, which was right on our way. The repair took all of two minutes and I purchased a spare for 'next time'.

We soon left the thruway and were back on more comfortable back roads wandering from village to village. Amsterdam seemed a cool place as was Glen Falls where we had.a great lunch at an outside table in the parking lot. . . Our destination was Bridport, VT and an Alpaca farm for the night. After a couple of tries we found the farm and met Jenny who ran the farm. This was a very special place and we set up camp just behind the hay barn overlooking the fields with the Adirondacks in the far distance.

Carol bought herself a fine Alpaca scarf and we walked down to the fence and tried to chat with the Alpacas and the belted steers that were in the fields. We had a good evening watching the sunset. Jenny and her dog Addie came to visit and we chatted some more and learned more about the farm. A perfect setting. When morning came the Alpacas had gathered just outside the Doodle and were all curious about us. We got a good start on the day around 8:00 and headed up 22A toward Burlington.

The Alpacas came to visit in the morning

In a town called Vergennes we found a great little sidewalk cafe for breakfast. It was right on the town square. We chatted with the locals and had a hearty breakfast, and Harper had most of my bacon once again. Since we couldn't check into the RV park until after three we set out to accomplish a few chores.

We made it to a Walmart (with much friendlier staff), a wonderful cheese store and Harpers favorite pet supply store in Williston, VT. We adopted Harper from a dog rescue non-profit in Williston in January of 2019 and this was the first pet store we came to. After shopping for the pup, we found a carwash with a stall large enough for the Doodle and got her all clean, refueled and made our way to the Leisure Travel Van Rally being held at the Apple Island Resort in South Hero, VT in the middle of lake Champlain.

It was 3:30 when we rolled through the gate and by 4:00 we were deep in conversation with new neighbors in their Leisure Travel Van. Lynn and Dan are from Portland Oregon and we chatted on and on. Great folks to have next door. We met up with Paul and Marilyn who organized tie rally and met up with a few familiar faces from the rally held here last year. Last year we had about 15 or 16 coaches here, this year 44 coaches! We had a good supper, watched a show on Netflix had ice cream and turned in early, we were very tired today for some reason.

This morning we had our first coffee watching the sun rise up over Lake Champlain and after I made some pancakes and bacon for breakfast along with coffee and orange juice. Today the Leisure vans started rolling in. We met a lot of new folks and chatted with 'old friends' it was a nice laid back kind of a day wrapping up around the campfire with all participants. We all shared stories and swapped great ideas.

Below is a gallery of images from the journey

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