What to say about Sandusky, Ohio and why did I pick it? For one it was on one of the Great Lakes and was within a reasonable mid point between Canandaigua and Decorah, Iowa. When reading about it, it read like a quaint seaside town with a Maritime museum, and its main draw Lake Erie. What I can now say, is don’t bother, there must be other towns along Lake Erie or one of the other finger lakes to recommend.

Besides it being extremely hot and humid my image of a lakeside campground was completely shattered. Yes, this KOA is lake side over a berm, and if you stand on your tiptoes you can see it from the campground. But here is my assessment of the campgrounds so far. I need to get out of the KOA convenience and search for more interesting places to stay. Where is my comfy little plot of grass under a big tree parked by a river or a lake or a mountain side? i need to search better. I have about 5 apps on my phone but they all produce the same places. And reading the reviews does not seem to help because I have to take in to consideration who is writing them. I can see this is going to take sometime to get it right.

At the moment, I am sitting under a screened tent with a camp light in what might as well be a parking lot with a paved area next to a picnic bench surrounded by enormous Class A motorhomes complete with grills, golf carts, plant, TV’s outside, and any number of necessities they could not leave home. Not to be critical, ok I am going to be critical and snobby and every other bad judgemental thought I could have and say, right out, this is the essence of a bad dream. That being said, I am judging this from campsites I have enjoyed in the past before America turned into a traveling circus of RV’s. Where is my campsite in the Blue Ridge Mountains where we played music and danced in the shadow of the moon. Where is that campsite in Chaco Canyon where you could reach out and touch the stars or the campsite where we watched the heat lightening make natural fireworks in the desert? It must be out there and so tomorrow I will begin by “turning the page” and chasing it. No more conveniences such as wifi or phone or electricity or water. We don’t need it and I don’t want it. I want to hear the birds at 5 AM and the geese flying to their beds at night.

Highlights of Sandusky is the Maritime Museum and the Marblehead Lighthouse. By the way it is way prettier than the lighthouse in Marblehead, MA. The history of fishing, and in the winter, collecting ice was fascinating. Did you know Lake Erie provided ice for Cuba?. Did you also know that stored ice could last for 3 years in the ice sheds? Coal was brought by train to Sandusky to be shipped worldwide. The different ships and the battles fought were highlighted in the museum, but even more interesting for me was the underground railroad. and how they transported people to Canada. I did not take many pictures of Sandusky as I thought I might go out and shoot some night shots of the roller coasters, but I am too comfortable to fire up the van. Here are some of the Marblehead Lighthouse and one of my experiments in taking multiple pictures.

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Oh, we can’t forget the Tofts ice cream factory where when they say large they don’t mean large, they mean LARGE. What teenage boy could resist a large mint chocolate chip?

Tomorrow we hop on over to Decorah, IW following byways. We will start my goal of finding campgrounds in the wild. In case you are wondering why Decorah, why else, it has a Norwegian-American museum where somewhere lies a 14th century tapestry given to the museum by Shap’s mother, a part of Ole Bull’s collection.

Canandaigua, NY is everything the guide books say it is. The town is quaint, and historic. The Main Street, although interrupted by a four lane highway boasts long green lawns reaching out from the most elegant homes set back with front porches reminiscent of time gone by where front porches were key in the architecture of the time. One can imagine the family sitting there in the summer evening as neighbors stroll by. The street to the Sonneberg gardens, although not as broad, continues the same architecture, with turrets, upstairs porches, and a particular house with a clock placed in the center of a turret above the portico to the house. I can only imagine a young girl sneaking into the house past a curfew. But this is a story in my imagination because what young girl would be out without a chaperone in those days.

This street leads to the Sonneberg Gardens and Estate. We stopped there on our way out of town and I am glad we did not miss this opportunity. The estate was the summer home of Ferris and Mary Thompson. It was purchased in 1863 and the farmhouse was replaced with a Queen Anne Style brick home in 1865 completed in 1867. Just a modest little 44 room cottage.

The specimen of trees and the flower gardens are interspersed with statuary which for my taste does nothing for me. But this period in history many sculptures were coming from Europe and it was in vogue to place these statues throughout the gardens. Imagine running into this scary fellow when meeting you lover in the garden at night.

I started with the beginning of day three instead of day two. but then my life has always been willy nilly. Our first morning in Canandaigua, which I will neither learn to say or spell correctly, we headed for downtown which was far from impressive with closed stores, and buildings that looked abandoned. Definitely a contrast to the beautiful homes we had just passed. We ate breakfast in a restaurant that looked mostly closed, with an imposing brick building of the most horrendous style. However, the waitresses were friendly and we were in and out quickly.

The waterfront on Lake Canandaigua seems to have bloomed algae so all of the beaches were closed. There were an array of boats and some kayak but generally there was little activity. This area redeemed the downtown with a beautiful walkway around the park. Wanting to see what the area was all about we drove out into the country side following the lake in some areas and losing it in others. The rolling hills of corn and soybeans between newly cut hayfields proved to be a treasure trove of photographic opportunities. Sheep grazing in the meadow, miles and miles of fields, beautiful old barns and farmhouses. A day of sightseeing turned into a day of photography.

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We left for Sandusky, Ohio choosing to follow Route 20 along country roads and through some quaint towns and others not so much. The highlight for Shap was stopping for lunch at Tom Wahl’s a true hamburger joint with root beer in iced mugs and bacon and cheese to top off the burger.

,So we are now in Sandusky where there seem to be quite a few waterparks and roller coasters. This area does not look as nice as I thought it would, but tomorrow is another day and another surprise I am sure is in store. We finally got on Route 90 to get here at a reasonable hour and listened to “Greenlight” by Matthew McConaughey, also read by him. He reads well, and kept our attention. One thing I took away from the book was his phrase: “Turn the Page.” When you don’t like it , when things aren’t going well, “turn the page.” A philosophy I learned from a friend ages ago, only she told me, nothing material is that precious so if you lose it, let it go. Well, I finally let go of finding my contacts and last night where do you think I discovered them? In the frying pan tucked in a corner of a shelf. Logical don;t you think? Where else would you find a bag of contacts. Turn the page… more tomorrow.

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August 26, 2021: Day One: What is it about starting out on a trip and feeling like you don’t really want to go, it would be so much easier to stay home in your everyday routine? Is it trying to remember everything, is it all the last minute work issues, is it a lack of control of the situation, or is it just you are stepping out into the great beyond.

Starting out today, had the usual bumps in the road. Somewhere along the line I lost my contact bag which I swear is in the van, but have no idea where. Had to stop at the eye doctor and pick up some contacts. “Oh no, you can only have one trial pair and it will take two weeks to get the contacts.” Himm, first bump in the road as the only definite place we will be until we get to Bainbridge Island is Denver. Can I have them Express mailed? I was told under no uncertain terms the contacts will not be in Denver by Sept. 6th. Should we bet on it? I sent them to Bainbridge, so of course they will be there by Sept 3rd which means they could and would be in Denver by that time. Oh well, back in the van.

We went north, to go south, by taking the scenic route through the Champlain Islands to Rouse’s Point. The bridge over to NY is pretty impressive, but once you get there you feel like you have stepped back in time. The towns have dilapidated buildings in all forms of restaurants, store fronts, houses, farms and barns. What still stands towering over the towns are churches. Churches in brick or stone, with turrets and steeples.

Riding down Route 11 toward Malone are acres of cornfields and small farms. As I went by one farm, an Amish man stopped hammering the wood on a shed and waved. I waved back and thought of that small moment of connection. Shortly after that, a woman in a black bonnet driving a horse and carriage passed by on the other side of the road. Flashbacks of my childhood in Gettysburg, sitting looking out the window of my grade school classroom and watching the Amish coming into town with their horse and carriages. A site very familiar to me then, yet this afternoon it seemed strange. I did not know there were Amish farms in this area of New York. Later we passed a farmstand with women in bonnets and baskets talking casually together in the heat of the summer day. I drift into the recesses of my memories, my mother and I buying cantaloupe, peaches, tomatoes, and sticky buns from the Amish and Mennonites farm stands. A time in the 1950’s when we bought all our summer produce from the farms, brought it home and prepared it to freeze waiting to be eaten on a cold winter’s night. The kitchen table spread with newspaper, my entire family seated around it shucking corn, cutting off the kernels into a bowl, and finally the absolute favorite of all, the gleamings. My father would take a fork and scrape the cobs so the inner kernels and their juices would fall into a separate bowl. This was the sweetest part of the corn and only produced a small amount. We could hardly wait to eat it, but we had to wait for winter.

We continued down the road listening to a story on Audible, while enjoying the flat countryside of corn and hay fields and horse ranches. We passed an old A&W, now painted bright pink with a miniature replica of a 59 Chevy for a sign. Cars lined up waiting to eat, I half expected a waitress to arrive on roller skates in a poodle skirt.

Suddenly we are surrounded by miles of wind turbines, slowing turning their gigantic blades over the landscape as if they were a priest giving a blessing. White giants, I felt as if at any moment, they could start to march, trampling everything in its path. Meanwhile life continued below under their command. Do any birds live nearby?

We are now in Canadaque, NY in a KOA campground, listening to the sounds of middle America, our only definite reservation. This is an interesting experience sitting here in the dark, typing, and listening to the conversations of others. I look forward to finding quiet out of the way places to camp, but for now this is fine. We are here, at the beginning of my dream, and our adventure.