We left Cortland headed for Niagara Falls, but first we had to drive by the northern boundary of New York’s Finger Lakes. We were also trying to stay off of the toll roads, since we’ve probably spent close to $200 on tolls so far. This decision also allowed us to drive through may of the small towns that make up this quaint area.
Like yesterday drive, these are probably more Miata roads than they are truck and trailer roads; I’ve made a mental note that I may have to come back through here one day with my Miata!
One of the towns that we drove through that really impressed me was Skaneateles. But first I had to learn how to pronounce it: "skanny-atlas" the preferred way, or "skinny-atlas" the common way. This village is named from and located on the shores of Skaneateles Lake, one of the Finger Lakes, which means long lake in one of the local Iroquois languages. It’s the cleanest of the Finger Lakes, with water so pure that the city of Syracuse and other municipalities use it unfiltered. Since we didn’t get a chance to stop in this charming city center, this was one we’ll have to come back to.
With all the hills, curves, small towns, and stop lights, our progress was rather slow, so we finally bit the bullet and used the Interstate system to drive the from just outside of Rochester to our KOA campsite, twelve miles east and north of Niagara Falls.
We arrived late in the afternoon, to a fairly full campground, but one thing struck me as unusual – I was only one of a handful of campers that spoke English, as there was a large contingent of Dutch tourists here, mixed with some Danes and Germans. The Dutch were only staying until they could track down a big screen TV to watch the Netherlands play Spain in the Soccer World Cup final, since the TV reception here was limited to just a couple of channels.
Parked next to us was part of an extended family from Connecticut that had rented one of those class C motorhomes with the huge decals on it. There were five people staying in the motorhome, and the other six were staying in a couple of tents a few spaces away. I was amazed how expensive these rentals are: $250 a day, plus 32¢ a mile, plus fuel, plus all expendables like propane, then include food and camping fees and the four day trip was going to cost close to $2500! For kicks we ordered a large all-meat pizza for dinner delivered to our trailer – heck since we’re not spending the big bucks of a rental RV, we could afford to splurge tonight.
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