I drove 138 miles today – starting in Saugerties and ending in Cooperstown.  It’s good to start this trip so close to home, it would be easy to ooh and ahh over other parts of the country and forget how breathtakingly beautiful New York state is.  The route I took wended first through the Catskill Mountains, then through tidy farmland, still dotted by the occasional snowdrift, and ended up in the Finger Lakes.  Along with the varied scenery was varied weather; I went through temperatures ranging from 80 degrees down to 51 degrees, blazing sun, fog and a downpour. 

Along the route I took a tour of Howe Caverns.  When Jack (the mini-van) and I pulled up the parking lot had about five cars and fifteen yellow school busses.  So, needless to say, my tour of the caverns was in the company of many schoolchildren.  The group I was with was from just outside Albany and I’d guess they were 11 or 12 years old.  Because I was willing to go with them I got a significantly reduced entry fee.  In truth, I had as much fun listening to the reactions of the kids as I did looking at the cave.  They giggled their way through the twisting path, tried to tip the boat on our ride on the lake, fell for every tall tale and bad joke the guide provided and kept me highly amused with their comments.  At the suggestion of Judith and Zak I also stopped briefly at the Iroquois Indian Museum, which was well worth the time; they have a lovely collection of contemporary Iroquois art housed in a building designed to evoke a longhouse.

I’m spending the night at a motel on Lake Otsego, a few miles north of Cooperstown.  The owner, Heidi, is a charming woman and I promised her that I’d put her up on the web and give her a little free advertising, so here she is.

I suspect, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out, that the ability to put people up on the web will be a major icebreaker.  So far, with one notable exception, everyone I’ve come across has been thrilled to be part of my website.  The exception was a funny, friendly Chinese waiter.  Until the moment he faced the camera he was the life of the party.  The second I aimed the camera at him he looked terrified; Judith and I tried to cajole into letting me take a picture with no success.  We surmised that he was either an illegal immigrant or else was in some other trouble with the law. 

So far the trip has been going as well as I had envisioned it, with only a few minor glitches.  For one, my cell phone hasn’t been working in most places.  I’d assumed that since it had worked nationally in most of the places I’d been over the past year I would have no problems with it, except say in the wilds of Montana.  However, over the past year I’d mostly traveled in major urban areas, not in rural ones.  I’m still only about 200 miles from home and have yet to have the phone work with a clear signal.  Switching over to 900 minutes a month may have been a major folly.  So, for those of you trying to call me and wondering why my phone is never on, just leave a message I promise I’ll get back to you when I can.

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