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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.