Montgomery County Day Trip

To celebrate my friend, Terry's birthday we planned a day trip to explore the Amish area of Montgomery County. We met up at ValueMotors so I could drop my car off to have some work done and we headed out in Terry's car.

      I had hoped to stop in SPROUT BROOK to stop in an old store I noticed last fall, but my GPS did not recognize the name of Sprout Brook, so we headed towards Canajoharie.  We pretty much drove through Canajoharie because we needed a restroom and we could see a McDonalds across the river in Palatine Bridge.  It turned out to be the same McDonalds near the geocache Peggy, Christa and I found last fall.  This time, I saw the tiny cemetery that the cache is named for.   I don't know how we missed it before, since it is sitting right in front of McDonalds.  We headed back to Canajoharie where  we found two geocaches and had lunch at a small diner.   LISA'S FAMILY RESTAURANT.  We both had the burger special for $6.00, and it was pretty good but not exceptional.  The waitress was VERY friendly.  

     Then we headed up to Palatine Bridge again.  I could not find the pie shop that someone at a shop I visited last fall told me about, but while looking, we found the MOHAWK INDIAN CRAFT SHOP. We stopped and went in and bought postcards.  

     We then decided it was time to find the AMISH area.  It seemed pretty elusive at first even though we had the names of the roads to look for and we could see the roads on the map I had.  Two women we ran into at this old church suggested we backtrack a bit to a certain route so we tried that.  We never did find the route, but the area we found ourselves in did seem to have a lot of Amish farms, spread out.  We stopped at this farm stand and purchased some fresh produce.  
     We saw a sign saying "jams and jellies" and we headed down a dirt road and we came to an Amish farm.  I asked a young boy about the jams and jellies aince I did not see a shop and he went in and got a woman, who I think may have been his grandmother.  She said she would bring some out for us.  There were several young Amish children hanging around and I tried to start a conversation with them, but they did not answer any of my questions.  Terry and I purchased some jelly and conversed with the older woman a bit and when I asked here where we were, she said we were in the Fort Plain area.  We found a couple of more Amish farms, and stopped at  a very small farm that offered vegetables, but nobody was home.

   I had the addresses of several Amish schools in the Fort Plain area and we were able to find this one:  It is probably not a ONE ROOM schoolhouse, from the appearance.
     Then I asked Terry if she wanted to go to an Amish run grocery store in Fort Plain and she did, so we headed to Fort Plain.  The store moved from the previous address, so we had a hard time finding it.  We tok a break to have some cold drinks out of my cooler.  Then Terry said "any more geocaches to look for?"  I looked at my info and realized that we had missed the most interesting geocache the one hidden near the Palatine Church, so we headed in that direction.
     When we got to the church, we noticed the front door was wide open so we went in and looked around.

This postcard shows how the church appears from the outside.  It is absolutely beautiful inside.  Unfortunately, we used up most of our available time and didn't have time to look for the cache, but we did see the bridge where it is hidden.  I also took a minute to check out the cute, small Visitors Center across from the church.  I was hoping to get a new Montgomery County map since mine was getting pretty wrinkled, but they did not have any. I did pick up some brochures,  The Visitors Center is a tiny museum, and had some artifacts on display.
   By this time it was getting late, so we headed for home.  The GPS kept sending me down a closed road in Fort  Plain, but we finally found our way on a route to Cooperstown.  It was a great day!  

Thai Food and Neahwa

Connie and I met up at SIMPLY THAI for lunch.  I had one of their noodle dishes and she had fried rice.  We splurged on desert.  I had fried bananas and she had fried ice cream, which we shared.

After that we went to Neahwa Park and took a walk.

Toronto Trip: August 10-14, 2012

Megan, Peggy and I planned a short trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  The main purpose of the trip was to
take my grandkids (Cassandra who is almost twelve and Tyler, who just turned seven) to CANADA'S WONDERLAND.

Meg, the kids and I left my house in W. Laurens early on Friday morning, the 10th of August.  We hightailed it to Eastview Mall (outside of Rochester) so we could meet up with Megan's high school friend Karla Bailey and her boyfriend, and go to the LEGO store.  We arrived at the mall a couple of minutes after noon.  While Megan was trying to contact Karla by cell phone, the kids and I went on a double decker carousel.  Karla and her boyfriend arrived and we all purchased lunch (at different places) and we ate together.  I had a WAHLBURGER from Tom Wahl's.  Then we went to the LEGO store.

  I purchased each kid a birthday present (since both have birthdays in the summer).  Then we headed to Lockport, arriving around 3:30 or so.

Peggy put on a great cookout for our siblings and their families, and our cousin Becky.  Gail and Bob were there, Mike and Janie were there with Janies two boys and both of Mikes daughters were there with their boyfriends.  We had a great time, and we celebrated Peggy and Gail's August birthdays with a HUGE cake that Bob brought.  Mike set the three boys (Dillon, Dominic and Tyler) up with hammers,nails and logs so they could practice hammering. 

The following morning (Saturday) I packed a lunch and we headed towards Canada.  We had a long wait at the border, which was aggravating, and then when we got into Ontario, we found out that my GPS navigation system did not work in Ontario.  We found our way to the zoo and arrived early afternoon.  It was raining off and on, but not enough to hinder us.  We had a very good time at the zoo and then we headed to Katz's Delicatessan in Toronto.  Peggy had been there before.  I think we all enjoyed it!  Peggy and I shared a knish and a cabbage roll and I had a small bean/onion/celery salad.  The others all had chocolate cake for desert, but I passed on that.  Tyler's piece of  chocolate cake was absolutely GINORMUS  (a word he uses a lot).  

Then it was on to our lodging at CANADA'S BEST VALUE INN in Richmond Hill.  On the way there, we passed Canada's Wonderland and Megan and Cassy and Tyler all squealed with delight at the sight of the huge roller coasters.  I think we arrived at our hotel around 9:30 p.m. Peggy and I had a room adjacent to the room Megan and the kids shared.

The next morning we had the continental breakfast offered by the hotel and headed to CANADA'S WONDERLAND.  Unfortunately, we were reading the wrong mapquest and ended up in Toronto, but we eventually made it to Canada's Wonderland around eleven a.m.

At first, it looked like the day was going to be a bust, because we found out that Tyler would not be allowed on some of the roller coasters.  But it turned out that he could ride many of them.  We had lunch at the park, and spent the better part of the day going on various rides.  While Peggy and the kids went on THE BAT, Megan and I had a snack.  I had DIPPING DOTS and Megan had a huge funnel cake with ice cream and strawberries.

In the late afternoon, Megan and the kids headed to the waterpark and Peggy and I left the park.  We headed to Katz's so we could have supper there again, but  found it closed.  We went to a holocaust memorial and searched for a minute or two for a geocache there, but we were more interested in the memorial than the cache, and we did not find it.  We headed back to Canada's Wonderland and stopped at a place that offered takeout from the SWISS CHALET and we had chicken dinners.  I also had a poutine!

We met up with Megan and the kids at Canada's Wonderland and went on a couple more rides before
heading back to our lodging.

The following morning (Monday) we headed to Chinatown.  As usual, Chinatown was bustling, busy and very colorful.   We shopped, found a geocache (ESCAPE FROM CHINATOWN) and had lunch before heading back to New York. We went to a great chinese bakery and purchased a lot of items.  On the way back to the USA,   Peggy decided to use the bridge in Niagara Falls instead of the Rainbow bridge, and we were able to get through quickly and easily..

That evening,  Peggy had a meeting so we were on our own for supper.  We ordered a pizza and salad from
a pizzeria on Main Street (Papa Joe's?) and then went to the cemetery so I could show my fathers grave to Megan and the kids.   We explored the cemetery a bit and then went out for ice cream at LAKE EFFECT ARTISAN ICE CREAM.  It was the best ice cream we ever had.......especially Tyler's FROZEN HOT CHOCOLATE.

Tuesday morning we headed back across the state.  We went through Honeoye so Megan could show the kids some of the places from her childhood such as Sandy Bottom Beach and the house we lived in from l978 through 1986, prior to moving to the Oneonta area.  We also went to THE WIZARD OF CLAY and stopped by Karla's house to see Karla for a few minutes.

We stopped in Canandaigua for lunch at Charlie's Restaurant.

It is a very kid friendly place, with a large menu and very reasonable prices.  Then it was back on the road so that Megan and the kids could make it home in time for supper with  Misty and her family.   

Lunch with Linda

I asked Linda to come over for lunch.  I made ham salad for the first time, and it was very good.  After lunch, we took a nice walk.

Hidden Valley Outdoors ADVENTURE

Hidden Valley Outdoors: West Winfield, NY, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.

The kids, their mom and I headed out to West Winfield this morning to go to Hidden Valley Outdoors. When we first saw the place, I said to Megan "I hope this does not turn out to be a bust" and she indicated that she had the same concerns, however it turned out to be fun.

They offer several different activities. The two free ones are fishing (you need to purchase the worms, though) and the petting zoo. The kids chose fishing first.
Unfortunately, after purchasing the worms, they realized that their Dad who usually did the baiting and taking fish off the hook was not with us and Megan made it clear to them that she was not going to do it.

Anyways, Cassandra stepped up to the plate and bravely put the worms on the hooks for herself and Tyler. For the most part, they were feeding the fish, because it seems that the fish have a lot of experience taking worms off the hooks. However, Cassandra did catch one fish.

The SAFARI RIDE was priced at ten dollars, but when I balked at the high price, it was lowered to five dollars apiece, so we took our own private safari ride, which was the most fun thing we did. We were driven around the woods and meadows and saw lots of animals, many of which came right up to the jeep and ate crackers out of the kids hands.

Unfortunately, my camera broke or maybe the battery just died, so I purchased a disposable camera and was able to take some pictures on the safari.

After the safari, we headed out towards West Winfield, and had lunch at Kylie's Diner, and the lunch was very good.

The we tried for two geocaches, but we only found one of them.

And then when we set out for home, I suggested we stop at THE COUNTRY KICHEN in New Berlin for ice cream. So, thats what we did!

It was a great day!

Eight Geocache Adventure

Luckless and I went to Delhi to find seven new geocaches hidden by softball29.  In addition to that one we found an eighth cache at a fishing access the other side of Delhi.  I had my camera in my purse, but I forgot
to take it with me, which was unfortunate esp. at the Delhi College Park............I would have liked to take some pictures at the butterfly garden.  Anyways, it was a great day>

Cobleskill to The TePee Adventure

WednesdayAugustfirst 069, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.


Megan found out that the skirt she ordered in a shop (VIVAYA's) in Cobleskill was ready, and we decided to go out and pick it up this afternoon.  We got a kind of late start, leaving after noon.   We took 88 to Cobleskill, picked up some lunch items at McDonalds and
had lunch in a park at the end of Main Street.  From there we walked up Main Street to the Cat Nap Bookstore.

  We bought a bunch of books, most of them about the holocaust.  Cassy is particularly interested in the holocaust and she found several books about it.  I also purchased several books about the holocaust.  Then we crossed the street to go to Vivaya's to pick up the skirt.. 

Vivaya and her family tried hard to get us to buy other items but we remained strong!  Then we walked back to the car and I suggested we go up to Route 20 and go to THE TEPEE.  Megan headed in that direction and I looked at the map and realized we would be driving VERY close to Sharon Springs, so I suggested we drive through it.  I told Cassy about how many holocaust survivors went to Sharon Springs after the war.  

     Once in Sharon Springs, Megan wanted to walk up and look at the ADLER HOTEL AND SPA, so we did.  Then I suggested that we stop at the active spring WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS. In the past, there has always been a dipper handy for getting water, but I noticed that the dipper is gone.   Cassandra found the back door to the bathhouse opened and wanted to go in but I told her "ABSOLUTELY NOT".  But, while the kids and I were checking out
the springs, Megan snuck in and looked around.  After she came out, I stepped inside the door and took a few pictures.
I pointed out some other sights in Sharon Springs and told Megan about THE FABULOUS BEEKMAN BOYS.

   Then we continued back up to Route 20 and went to the TePee.   Up at the top, you can see a picture of Cassandra posing in front of the bison.   Megan and the kids purchased a few souveniers.  And then we headed home.  We stopped in Laurens and the kids got SLUSHIES.