Clayton, NY (Sept 25 - 29)

 

So we drove from Niagara Falls up along the lake towards Clayton, Chain Reaction stop from Herb in Scottsburg. It is a beautiful drive, a little windy today. We kept seeing signs for "horse and buggy". The roads are shared with the Amish up here.

 

Clayton is a very small town right on the St Lawrence Seaway. Our RV park was old and primarily seasonal trailers, but we had the entire "short stay" area to ourselves. The owner, Dave, was great and we ended up posting up there for longer than expected as we needed to REST. We have been running and running like crazy. First night there I took Moe out for an evening walk to watch the sunset. On the way back, I threw his stick and his leash must have locked, because the next thing I knew I was flying through the air. Landed on a rock on my right upper arm. Hurt like hell and gave just a charming, totally black and blue bruise, over the next couple of days. He did not mean to and it was partially my fault and he (Moe) felt so bad .... I had never ever seen him so submissive and so sorry afterwords.

 

Our primary reason for going to this area was to go to the 1000 Islands National Park, a group of islands (1500, not 1000)that was the IN place to stay at the start of the 1900's for the rich out of NYC. They came up here and built castles and homes on the islands they bought to inhabit for a few months every year. Many are still lived in. It had rained so hard in the morning we almost canceled our tour but I am so glad we didn't .... by the time we arrived at the dock it was beautiful, sunny and everything fresh and clean from the down pour. Great time to see all the castles and homes.

 

 

The Boldt Castle is the most famous. It was built in the early 1900's by the owner of the Waldorf Astoria hotel for his beloved wife Louise. They spent one summer in the power house waiting for the main castle to be built with their 2 small children. They were ready for the Grand Opening and party on February 14th (her birthday) when word came to the workers at the castle two weeks prior to the planned event to stop all construction .... Louise had died. He never lived in the castle or stepped foot on the island again and told his children it was never to be worked on while he was alive. It sat vacant except for vagrants until the mid 1970's when it was bought by the parks department and the refurbishing began. The castle has 365 windows .... one to clean for each day of the year. It is an ongoing process but open to the public for self guided tours.

 

The top floors have not been refurbished yet and the graffiti up there is just heart breaking .... names carved in walls and floor boards and walls with holes ripped out of them, fires started in the corners to keep warm. I guess if you are homeless it wouldn't have been a bad spot to set up camp, but the damage is awful.

Along with the Boldt Castle we went, via the waterway boat tour, to Millionaires Row on both the US and Canadian sides. Amazing and elaborate homes, one for sale for just a measly 21 million. I'm thinking I could handle that.

Lexi, as the only child (teen) on board, got the priviledge of actually driving the tour boat. Although we all looked for seatbelts, none were needed. She did a great job and was at the helm for about 10 minutes. Vic got a great vidoe but not sure how to get it on here. If I can, I will post it later. Meanwhile, here's a picture of our girlie driving the boat. It was a blast for her and for all of us.

 

We finally made it to part of a Seahawks game at a little tavern in Alexandria Bay and got to watch the second half the of Seahawk's win over the Chargers. Sorry Steve, but we loved the game.

Lots more pictures in the web albums off to the right of the screen. There are two albums for this area ... Two Nations Tour and extras. Was combining two phone cameras and our regular camera. Enjoy the pictures and miss you all.