Zoom the Days Go By

It’s Wednesday already! It’s been another fast few days. We had a great and busy weekend.

Saturday was supposed to be the nicest day, but really the whole weekend was beautiful.

Saturday evening we headed to Kozel’s Restaurant for dinner to meet some Heartland friends who were staying at a campground nearby in the Copake KOA.

 

(This was one of the campgrounds we visited in our drive a couple months ago, as we will be staying there in September.) It was a fun evening – we sat outside, enjoyed the company and had a delicious dessert (thanks again Beth!). The campground was full, of course, for the Memorial Day weekend. It was a new experience for Harry and me, as both of our other trips have been in the off-season when the campgrounds were pretty empty!

Sunday was a low-key, layin’ low, not doing too much kind of day. We enjoyed our usual Sunday breakfast, relaxed and watched some tv…nothing too exciting…

 

 

 

 

 

For the last day of the weekend, we decided that we should get back to work. Harry worked on cleaning the screens to our windows…

 

and finishing up some of the trim in the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I worked on cleaning out and sorting our kitchen cupboards. They are almost all emptied out!

I feel like our progress on the house has slowed somewhat, but I think that’s partly because the majority of the big projects are behind us. For the most part, all we have left to do are small finishing touches, which is good, but at the same time it doesn’t give us that satisfying “ahhhh” feeling when we finish this little piece or sort out that little pile. Both Harry and I are keeping our eyes on the countdown – we are heading toward the 130 day mark for the house sale. We do have one more big project to check off our list, which we will tackle in a couple weeks when we get back from Lake George.

We are only 12 days away from our next trip!

Doing a Little Rearranging

 

A couple weeks ago, we decided to switch out our couch for a new chair for me, and today was the day that my chair was delivered.

I love it! It is so comfortable!!

 

Yesterday in preparation for the delivery, we switched around the furniture, and our living space looks so spacious now!

 

 

As you can see, we have made several changes. Our table is now moved over to the side where our couch used to be. As I have already mentioned, we don’t use the table for meals, so I now have a nice desk area if I want to use my computer.

 

 

We moved the cat tree over to the corner where the table used to be.

 

 

 

 

I think they approve of the change.

 

 

 

We are both very pleased with the results, and a coworker of Harry’s is going to take the couch, so we are happy that we don’t have to figure out how to get rid of it.

 

 

Have a great evening!

Awesome First Trip

It’s hard to believe that our first trip of the season is already a memory!

We loved Hartwick Highlands Campground. It was super quiet, as our time there was only 3 days after their opening day. We only saw five other rigs in our section the whole time we were there. There was another wooded area with a few rigs parked in it, but we only know that because we walked that way the first day. It wasn’t visible at all from where we were.

We had a wonderful pull through site – it was so easy to get into. The wireless internet was great, and so was the water pressure and electric. Actually the water pressure seemed so good that Harry was glad we had a pressure regulator.

 

 

Our site was very close to the bath house, and it was also an easy walk to the office and pool. (The pool wasn’t open yet for the season.)

 

 

 

 

For the most part, the weather was good. We had enough sun to get to the places we really wanted to go.

 

 

 

The major rain was over by the time we were ready to pack up.We were lucky to have only some light showers on our trip home.

 

The only part of our entire trip that did not go smoothly was at the end, when it came time to get back into our driveway. We have not perfected this process, and whether it is “pretty” or not seems to be hit or miss. Well, this time was a miss, and getting back into position was a little stressful. The good news is – we’re in the driveway! And hopefully we only have six more times having to go through that process. Neither of us will miss it!

Seventeen days until our trip to Lake George!

A Low Key Day

Today was one of those nice, relaxing, didn’t do too much, days.

The weather was part of the reason we didn’t have a lot of ambition. There was still a rainy mist coming down when we got up, and there was a low fog hanging over the campground.

 

We relaxed outside and read our kindles. We turned on a country music station and had it playing on the speakers that Harry had installed in our basement.

 

 

After a while, the rain started to let up, and we decided to take a drive over to a local cheese place that we had noticed on our drive in on Saturday.

 

 

There was a tasting table, and after trying the samples, we bought some cheddar and gouda cheese and a jar of black bean and corn salsa. Yummy.

 

 

Other than that, we didn’t do too much. The sun finally started to come out, and we took a couple walks. I took a few more pictures. We practically have the whole campground to ourselves.

 

We spent some more time outside reading and relaxing.

It has been a wonderful first outing of the season.

 

 

As I write this, Harry is outside doing some packing in preparation for heading out tomorrow morning. We already have the bikes on the rack, and the chairs put away.

It’s just about time to go…and start looking forward to the next trip!

A Visit to Cooperstown

 

This morning started as a bright and sunny day. However, we knew that it wasn’t going to be like this very long. So we got up and going right away. We headed out right around 9 o’clock.

 

Cooperstown is a small town, and we found a parking spot pretty easily.

 

 

 

It’s obvious that it’s not tourist season yet.

Our first stop was a small bakery that we came upon as we were walking to Main Street.

 

Harry enjoyed a walnut cinnamon bun.

 

 

 

I had a raspberry cheese croissant. Yum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that stop, we walked down Main St. checking out the shops. Not surprisingly, many of the tourist shops have to do with baseball. Neither Harry nor I are baseball fans so we continued on our way.

 

 

We walked to a little park by Otsego Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, we stopped at a place called Danny’s Market and bought sandwiches to bring home for lunch.

 

 

 

We had originally intended to bring the sandwiches back down to the lake and eat at the little park, but the clouds were starting to gather.

 

 

 

So we decided that it might be wiser to take our lunch home with us.

It’s now been raining all afternoon so that was a good decision!

 

 

We have been relaxing and enjoying just being. I have also tried out my new silicone bakeware.

 

It’s been another great day!

Family Memories

One of the reasons that we came to this campground is that Harry has some family roots in the area. We took a ride around this morning, and Harry showed me some of the areas he visited as a young child.  His grandmother lived on this dairy farm back in the 1950’s, and also operated a restaurant across the road.

 

This used to be “The County Kitchen”.  I even saw the sign for the restaurant leaning against a small shed in the back, but it was too far away to get a clear picture.

 

 

While we were there, we visited the cemetery where Harry’s parents were laid to rest.

Some of the gravestones in this cemetery go back to the early 1800’s and late 1700’s.

 

 

We also had the time to take several walks around the campground, and go for a short bike ride.

 

 

 

The countryside here is beautiful, and we are enjoying scenic views wherever we go.

 

 

 

 

After our great relaxing day, we headed out for a local favorite…

 

 

…where we met two of Harry’s brothers for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

After a nice dinner of bbq chicken and spareribs, we headed back home, making one more stop…

 

 

 

 

 

It has been a great day!

Hartwick Highlands Campground

Today was the day that we have been dreaming about, and planning for, and counting down to…our first trip of the season! The first several hours of the day were my usual Saturday routine…heading out bright and early to work – but today the hours had an extra excitement and I pestered all my coworkers with reminders of how long it would be until the work day was history!!

Finally work was over, and I headed home to help with the final preparations. We do have a list that we compiled after our two trips last year, and we checked it two or three times to be sure we weren’t forgetting anything.

We are still in the process of learning the routine of getting hitched up and out on the road, and it’s definitely not relaxing. But we were thinking this afternoon, this really is only our fourth time heading out of our driveway, so we think we’re doing pretty well. We are both hoping that this year with more frequent trips, and therefore more practice, that it will get a little easier.

 

Most of our route today was on I-88. It was a little bumpy, but otherwise great traveling. The skies were blue and clear, and there was very little traffic.

 

 

When we arrived at the campground, the office was closed. They had left a map and our site information tacked to the front door in an envelope with our name on it.

 

We are in an easy to get into and reasonably level site in an open field. We love it! Today was the first time we have been able to use our auto leveling system since last September. We can’t do it in our driveway because of the incline. We have to level our rig in manual mode. The auto leveling is so nice – just push a button and let it do its thing. Although it is a little weird to see the rig moving by itself up and down in all directions as it levels.

After we got settled we took a little walk. I took some pictures but the sun was starting to go down, so they came out a little dark.

This picture was taken looking back into the campground from near the office. You can see our rig up towards the back on the left hand side.

 

Ahhh! We are so happy to be here.