Sunday morning, we decided to hit the road and leave this nice little campsite of Blueberry Patch in the Finger Lakes district of New York State.
We were going to head further east among the Finger Lakes and see where we ended up.
We are aware from other Winnebago View owners, that there is a solenoid located underneath the passenger seat. It is very common for it to go wacky and stop working. The solenoid allows the engine's alternator to charge the coach batteries while driving down the road.
Actually, we had decided to pre-emptively change it out before we left on this trip. We had ordered it, but it became backordered and did not arrive in time for our departure. It was just one of those wonderful maintenance things that Steve takes care of in advance before it goes bad. At least we tried to.
So as we are totally bopping down the road in upstate New york, the solenoid has arrived at our post office back home, along with our held mail!
It would fluctuate up and down every now and then kicking in and working, and otherwise not working. It's not the end of the world, because we can easily recharge the batteries by running the generator, or hooking up the solar panels when we stop somewhere if there's adequate sun exposure, or just plugging it in somewhere to an electrical outlet at a campground that has a power post.
As we were driving along, we didn't know if we would have any of those three options available other than running the generator. So I got on my phone and checked ahead and around to various auto parts stores until I located one. O'Reilly's to the rescue!
We made it to Ilion, New York, and parked at the O'Reilly's to pick up the new solenoid as well as a couple odd size sockets to remove the passenger seat. At the same time there was an Aldi's right next door and I was able to stock up on a few things that we needed.
We haven't even bothered to change it out yet, because we are getting intermittent charging from it enough to keep the batteries high enough to make them usable for now. We wanted to concentrate on the beautiful route through the bottom edge of the Adirondack mountains as we headed towards Glens Falls, New York. The next Campground we had in mind had electrical hookups so it wasn't going to be a problem.
We could tell that the building had been very old and added on two more times.
We let the beautiful scenery roll on by as it unfolded before our eyes. We are taking all back roads and state highways to enjoy the countryside rather than the interstate.
We found our way to the very nice State Park located at Lake Caroga. The wonderful gal at the gate said she would make an exception for a 'walk-in" accommodation, as usually people make reservations. So she took out a map to highlight any empty sites that we could have our choice of. It turns out we had our choice from about 20 sites! LOL. We drove through the park and found a very nice level site that was quiet and peaceful. Some of the other sites were closer together. We really do enjoy being able to choose our own site.
We made up a nice dinner and settled down to a game of cribbage while sitting outdoors in the evening sunlight. This is the cribbage board our 13-year-old granddaughter made for us in her woodshop class.
The next morning, we decided to hit the road early, now it is Monday morning. We had a thought in mind and a destination to go to today if we had the opportunity. We hopped onto highway 4 and cut our way across the rest of New York State. We were thinking it was about time for lunch and we were looking ahead on the GPS to see if there would be a good place to pull over and make a little meal. We love being impromptu and not planning things. Up ahead we saw two little pull-outs next to what looked like some kind of a mill.
Sure enough, it was an old historical Mill located on the Kayaderosseras River.
We made up a little lunch and then we got out to explore.
It was very interesting to wander around and kind of try to figure out what was going on here many years ago.
This must have been the mill-keeper's house. We imagined the families that must have lived here and looked at the little windows up high on the second story. Probably those children fell asleep to the sounds of the rushing waters and the sounds of the mill every night for their entire childhood.
It was just such a nice easy little pull off on the edge of a little State highway route. Having lunch at a place like this and a chance to rest and regroup really makes traveling easy.
On the other end of the parking area was a small sign that said Empire Mill. Now we have a name! We zoomed in on the GPS with Google maps, and sure enough, there was the name. We were in that spot.
I texted some photos and the location to my two friends who have been following our entire trip, Linda Baldwin and Rosie Dupuy. Soon they had the answers!
So the mill keeper George West was the inventor of the first folding paper bag! Isn't that interesting?
Okay, my next blog post will be about the rest of the day. There are so many pictures for that next stop, that I want to write a separate blog about it.
Stay tuned!
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Hi Karen, I have been following you on your blog for quite a few years, but never commented. I enjoy following your journeys. We are the ones who had the same Safari. Our's was a Sahara, but they were the same color and we sold them at the same time. Just wanted to say I was born and raised in Ilion, NY and went to Caroga Lake a lot as a child. It is beautiful country and many historic places to see in the the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. I still miss upstate NY. Have fun on the rest of your trip!
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