Oh! The Places You’ll go! The Things You’ll See.

July 8, 2022

I wasn’t planning to blog the first two days, after all they are just driving days. But Pleasant Valley Farm is worth a mention. Jim, the owner, who loves to water ski, bought it in 1994. Although there was no body of water on it, he had a vision. Here are some pictures of Pleasant Valley today…..

That’s the house and lake in the middle pic, our campsite at the base of the dam on the right. He created the lake. Here’s another picture….

Remember there was no body of water on the farm when he bought it in ’94. That’s a slalom course in the picture above, and a ski jump on the right. I estimate the lake is no more than 500 yards long. Jim is 76 years old and still water ski’s. He rents 8 campsites (the blue bus in the background is on site 1) and rents his barn for events.

Saturday, July 9 In keeping with the Dr Seuss theme we found an unusual place to eat on our way to Wellsville, Mike’s Place in Kent Ohio. Here’s Peggy outside…

Notice the X wing replica on the left. Apparently Mike is a big fan of Star Wars. The food was good but the extensive, pun and joke filled menu and the overall quirkiness of the place is what makes it. Here’s the menu…

8 pages, over 200 items. We ate supper at Beef Haus in Wellsville with Chris.

Sunday July 10 70th Emo reunion. About 60 people, Aunt Betty Ann Fox, nee Emo, seemed to enjoy being the family matriarch. We stayed both Saturday and Sunday adjacent to Island Park, and next to the softball fields two night.

Monday 7/12 we had breakfast with Chris then hit the road. Stayed this night at Shaftsbury Alpacas, just outside Bennington Vt.

The owner told me everything about alpacas, and her personal life, sheesh. TMI

Tuesday – From the alpaca farm we went to Four Aces in Bradford, Vt., another roadfood.com find. It was good, avocado toast a big hit with Peggy. Then to Holiday Inn Express. Time for a hotel shower. Ate at the Sunset Grill in Campton, NH. Very good.

Wednesday drove around, exploring the area. Did the Coppermine trail to Bridal Veil Falls (how many Bridal Veil Falls can there be?). The hike up there and back was much more difficult than we expected, took much longer.

Camped at Dry River CG, in Crawford Notch State Park. Bugs were kind of bad but Peggy had them beat…

Thursday July 14 Did the hike up to Mt Willard. Here’s the view…

And one more, they call these gaps notches, as in Crawford’s Notch. That’s this one.

The only life bird possible for me here is Bicknel’s Thrush. It stays high up on the mountain tops, where the vegetation is 3 to 6 feet high, just below the tree line. Mt Williard isn’t high enough. Looks like I will miss this bird.

We head to Maine tomorrow.

PS lots of trouble blogging, first with the .heic extension that Apple now uses for all photos (who knew), then a “glitch” with the blogging software, could type and upload pictures but couldn’t publish. Restart fixed it but had to redo everything.