July 27, 2007

Ok, my new travel companion is very cute, not very tall, light brown complexion, big brown eyes, cute ears and just a little on the hairy side. No, not to worry, I did not pick-up some strange mountain creature. I past the Vermont Teddy Bear

Buddy guarding the car.

Company and I just couldn’t resist. Better talking to a bear than to a truck.

By the way, the jury is still out on a name for the truck. Betty, Betsy and Priscilla are in the race. I thought maybe Dodge, it is a Dodge truck and it sounds kind of fun to say “let’s get out of Dodge, Dodge.” Don’t have settled on a name for the bear either, Pooh is an obvious one, or just Buddy.

Anyway, back to the traveling. Decided to take a ferry across Lake Champlain to Essex, NY. What better way to relax than on a little boat ride. Caught the

12:30 PM ferry, just missed the 12 o’clock ferry, but didn’t mind one bit to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Sitting on the dock in the sun, writing in my journal (still trying to catch up to present time), looking out onto the lake, what bliss.

Once on the NY side I had to get the truck inspected, it didn’t have an inspection sticker and I did not want to run the risk of getting a ticket. I had researched a Mobile station which does inspections in Westport, close to the ferry landing spot and on my way to the Niagara Falls. As it turns out, there was no Mobile station. Luckily, the woman at the grocery store pointed me in the direction of a Dodge and GM dealership which perform inspections. Unfortunately, both would only do inspections by appointment, crap. Thanks to a wrong turn I ended up at a Ford dealership down the road and they did it right away, only 10 bucks.

Cranberry Lake

It had started to rain and a couple of big thunderstorms had moved thru the area as well. All this created this neat mist/fog in the mountains. Sorry, no photos couldn’t pull over. The drive thru the mountains, the Adirondack, was really nice. There was a stretch of road which was lined by two rows of birch trees in front of pine trees, the white against the green was amazing. Again, no photos. Went thru Lake Placid, cool to see the old Olympic installations. One hour later, I stopped and got

Jesus is coming along highway 3 near Wanakena

a motel room. It was only 5 PM, put I had zero energy. The town is called Tupper Lake. So much for making it to the Niagara Falls, still over 300 miles away. As the saying goes, it is not the destination, but the journey that takes you there, or something like that.

Sorry, I am rambling; I tend to do that when I am tiered.

Good night.