The Road

The Road

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Wow It's Been A Long Time

 I don't even remember the last posting I did here. The Covid really distracted me from this blog.Sort of just ran away and hid in the woods for most of the summer.Actualy it was kind of nice just spending lots of time un in the least populated place in New York State.I'll start with my first trip up back in June.

 Upon my arrival I found a few trees had fallen over the winter.They didn't damage anything but one was hung up in a standing tree and was kind of tricky to cut down. I went up just to open up the place,get my generator and chain saw up and stock the place so when I rode up on my Moto Guzzi in July I'd have everything I needed in place.I did manage to do this but spent most of my time cutting trees.





It was a big mess but I was lucky that nothing landed on the building. The June trip was a week long and I got the mess straightened out. Had good weather and did get out and about some.I joined the Food Coop in Potsdam and started work on an oil painting .


The news about all the fires burning out west brought this to my canvas .

The July trip was on the bike. As usual the trip started with a ferry trip across the Long Island Sound at 6 AM .


As you can see,the boat was pretty empty.What I found was that travel was much easier since the Covid struck.Way less traffic and no problem getting on any ferry I wanted .The down side was that there were fewer ferries running and the last boat was now 8PM rather than 11PM so coming back I have to get out really early to get there .It's an 8 hour ride from my camp to the ferry in Bridgeport CT .

Did lots of riding on this trip.The weather was really nice with only two rainy days so I was all over the North Country exploring for over a week.Bike ran great and I had a great time riding and painting when it rained. 




The August trip up was made in my little 1965 Valiant station wagon . I wanted to get into the back country in my kayak so I serviced the wagon,strapped the kayak to the roof and up I went. It was a good trip.I went up the Santa Clara Flow section of the St Regis River 







This was a great day out in this wilderness area.There were no other people for miles and it was incredibly peaceful .Beached the kayak and hiked around a bit .I found this old abandoned campsite up on a high spot overlooking the river that hasn't been used in many years.It's only accessed by  kayak or canoe.Someday I plan on spending the night here.




Went kayaking on another river this trip to,Actually it's the same river but a different branch miles away to the east. I like this section of river and have kayaked here a few times over the past few years.Again,like the Flow it's deserted and very nice for just relaxing and viewing nature.






This was a good trip right up to the next to the last day , that's when my generator stopped making electricity !Couldn't fix it in the field,I tried but I couldn't get enough of a splice soldered on the broken wire from the armature so the trip was over and I brought it home to fix in my shop.No sooner got home when we had this violent storm and knocked out the power here for almost 10 days ! I have a good generator here at home and it got pressed into service.I also had to keep my neighbors generator going for them because he was ill and his 88 year old wife couldn't do it.I had my hands full keeping all their frozen food and our own from thawing .Two hours on, 3 hours off from 5 AM until 11 PM or so.The operation was a success and it all ended well.Fixed the small broken wire but decided to leave that generator here at home and take the good 3500 watt one upstate to the camp.You see, my friend Pete needed help clearing out his late mothers house to sell it and there was a 7500 watt generator with my name on it there.So,now I have two good units and the repaired one as a back up here at home with the 7500 watt one .Next project is to fix this little 1200 watt one I have as a back up for the 3500 watt upstate at camp so if something goes wrong up there I don't have to end my trip.I need these to pump water to shower and do the dishes there.I rely on stream water that I pump  with an electric pump for those chores . After finishing up at Pete's mothers house I packed up the Moto Guzzi and headed back up north to my camp for the fourth trip this season.As usual I got the 6 AM ferry and got up there around 3PM. It was a good ride .The weather was warm when I got there but the next morning it had turned cold and wet.Rode into Potsdam to buy food in a cold drizzle that required me to put on my rain gear.The rest of the trip was cool like this but dry and mostly sunny .I got lots of riding in. I did close to 2500 miles on this two week trip. Had the wood stove going every day , saw lots of wildlife , and met a few nice people. It was a good trip but I pulled my back out so I had to ride home 400 miles with a bad back.I'm paying the price now a week later as I am getting ready to go up again with my wife in her car.I can barely move sometimes after I have been sitting but it seems to be improving some as I am taking hot baths with epsom salts and taking lots of Wobenzyme to kill the inflamation in the muscles. It's always something ! Here are some photos from the fourth trip. I got down some good back roads and had a great time exploring as the leaves were starting to change.I also finished the painting I started back in July.






So,there you have it,the blog is up to date and with any luck I'll be back up at my camp this Thursday afternoon for the 5th and final visit of this year.