Continuing to eat our way home

 This is the work room of Mrs Hanes hand made Moravian cookies.Every cookie is hand rolled, hand cutout and packaged by a person.

 Big "Bertha"  is a mixer that was obtained from a Navy ship to mix the dough.  The only park of this cookie that is done by machine.  And how do the ingredients get into the machine ? By a person who knows the secret recipe.  3000 eggs are used when this machine if prepared to mix the cookie dough!!!

In the old days Mrs Hanes mother used this dough bowl, this baking sheet and cookie cutters to prepare the original cookies.  They are very good also. Six flavors: Ginger, Lemon, Chocolate, Butterscotch, Sugar and Black Walnut.  Yup we tasted them all on a tour!

Camping at Forest Lake in Lexington, North Carolina

 Our RV looks nice reflected in the pond

 Nice cabins on the lake, very quiet here now! different on the weekends!

This dragon Fly liked the mirror on Jim's bicycle

Albion and places close

 Today there was a re-enactment of the Normandy Invasion.  It was in Conneaut, Ohio.

 Complete with planes, LCI's and tanks.  Quite a show!

With all the noice from the blank ammo, can't imagine what it was really like.

Lockport, NY

 We stayed at the Elks Club in Lockport, so today we toured the town.

 Lo and behold the longest lock in the Erie Canal system is here in Lockport, number 39

Here are some of the bridges on the waterway.  These bridges raise up to let boat traffic through.  We took the Cruise on the Erie Canal.

Niagara Falls

 Here are the beautiful American Falls as seen from Canadian side.The sun almost came out!

 We walked out on the Observation Deck then down to the gorge and walked up the side of the Falls

Here is the best I dould do without a tripod to take night pictures.

Naples and Letchworth State Park

 Here are the purple fire hydrants in Naples. In the book Off the Beaten Path Naples is famous for fire hydrants.

And Grape Pie! Ingredients include lard, concord grapes and sugar .

 Then on to Letchworth State Park.  Here is a rainbow at the Middle Falls.

Middle Falls from Inspiration Point.  Beautiful!

Todays quest, wineries and chocolate and waterfalls, beer and cheese

 Taughannock Fall Has no falls  drought anyone????

 Winery and brewery at one stop

 Beautiful place on Cayuga Lake

View of Senaca Lake from deck at Brewery

Lorenzo State Historic Site in Cazenovia, NY

 So the quest for the day was to see Lorenzo Historic site. However we were in the RV's .  So we found out we could park in the field at the site

 The site was quite impressive. The docent was very impressive.

The falls at Ithica were the only falls with any appreciable water flowing over them.

Cooperstown and visit to Erie Canal

 Day started out a little shaky, Sherry wanted to see the Erie Canal, so we went on a field trip to the Erie Canal Village, Dare I say it is RUN DOWN!. So off we go to the real canal, first a farmer's market, and an Elks Club in Rome.  Then on to lock 20 where we were lucky to see 3 boats go through,  two downstream, and one up.

The guys went to the Hall of Fame for a day.

Jim and I also had dinner with old friends Ann and Paul.

Ferry from Vermont to New York, and the Ausable Chasm

                                      
We decided to take the ferry to save some time and gas to get to New York.  A very smooth sailing on Lake Champlain occurred.  The GPS wasn't sure what was happening.

The Ausable Chasm was awesome!  We found it in a book titile  Off the Beaten Path.

We hiked one mile and then rafted a mile in the Chasm.

Been without WIFI for a while!! Burlington and such

 When in Vermont........ you have to tour Ben and Jerry's.  So we did.  No production that day, but free samples anyway!

We stayed in the local Elks Club.  We didn't realize that this was the biggest weekend of their year,  They had a family bar-b-que. Complete with Jumpy house and Elk!  Food and fun for all free. The Elk even posed by the RV's.  Burlington is a neat town.

 We were surprised to find out that only 10 minutes from the Elks club was part of the Burlington Bike trail.  So this morning Jim and I rode North on it.

Just down from the RV was this beautiful site of Lake Champlain.

Jim posing beside the train sign.

Weird Day touring today

 We started off the day to see a "floating Bridge". Well the bridge doesn't float anymore so we too pretty reflective pictures.

 The water in front of these houses is 1900 feet deep per the locals and is made into chunks for carving in the winter.

The off to Barre to tour the Granite  Quarry at Rock of Ages.  They cut out much of the grey granite used for memorials and buildings in the US.

There were samples of various headstones and Jim and David tried some out for size!

A Granite day isn't complete without a trip to Hope Cemetery to see some of the handiwork from the quarry.  This day only reinforced my desire to be cremated.  LOL!!!!  A race car headstone.....REALLY!!!!!

Randolph Center, Vt.

 A view of the Lake at our Campground

 Quechee Covered Bridge was destroyed last year by Hurricane Irene.  A wall 20feet high of water came rushing down the river and destroyed the structure of the bridge.They are redoing it and today we watched as they took off the last section of roof.  The bridge is scheduled to be in use this December.

The longest Covered Bridge is in Windsor.  We drove over it and discovered that we were in New Hampshire!

A relaxing day

 Today we woke up after a night of thunderstorms and decided it was a great day to Kayak the Saco River

Dave and Sherry had a tandem and Jim and I had solo's. What a great day.  We just took a lazy ride down the river.

View of the river..... Peaceful!