We departed from Peru, NY and struck out going west to Cole Creek State Park in Waddington, NY. Despite our picking the specific site in advance from the Internet, we ended up in an absolutely beautiful campsite right on the south shore of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The site was very spacious and we backed up on the grass in such a way that all of the Barbarian’s windows looked out on a panoramic view of the Seaway. The site to camp is only $20 per night but the state of New York charges more for what they refer to as “amenities,” which, in our case, meant 30 amp power only. There is no wi-fi, no water, no sewer and no phone but the view was absolutely stunning. From our chairs behind the trailer our view was of a sliver of grass in the immediate foreground, mid-scene was the Seaway with big ships running upstream towards the Great Lakes and Canada on the opposite shore. We broke out a bit of porter and set up our chairs for an afternoon of loafing and staring into the great view. Peg popped up to look at something in the Seaway and noticed two little mink that were scurrying among the big boulders that provide shoreline protection below our viewing station. Local park staff tried to identify them as ferrets (which are not indigenous to NY), squirrels and raccoons. We elected to disregard their knowledge since we can identify ferrets, squirrels and raccoons and these critters were not any of those.
Our neighbors were a bit strange. The folks to the west of us never came out of their coach – ever. The neighbors to the east arrived about an hour after we set up pulling an enormous fifth wheel with a big one-ton Dodge pickup. They were quite unfriendly and very corpulent. The hubby was a fat ginger with an enormous round head and the wife had big rolls of gelatinous, quivering blubber liberally distributed on her ass and thighs. Our meek attempts to speak with them were soundly rebuffed with non-committal grunts and looks of disdain. Fortunately, we could easily ignore them because they were camped on the side of the Invader we do not use except for hooking up utilities.
Cole Creek State Park is a beautiful camp spot so we were quite happy despite the expensive (lack of) amenities and the grumpy and ugly neighbors. We have noted that despite our unremarkable appearance and advanced age, we are maybe some of the most attractive folks in the state. There are a lot of ugly people here in spite of this being The Big Apple and the most magnificent place in the universe with wonderful people according to the promotional literature available to tourists.