Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Northbound


We are at the Wal-Mart in Central Square, New York (map).

We got a late start yesterday out of Ithaca, since we had to stay put for a "web meeting" conference call that ran until nearly 2pm. We took NY-13 out of town, which brought us all the way to the I-81 corridor and US-11 in Cortland. 11 took us all the way to Syracuse, where we got onto I-81, reasoning that the freeway would be a better choice through the city.

That proved to be a mistake, as some sort of construction had I-81 completely stopped from just a mile or so north of where we got on. We spent a good deal of time inching our way through the city. On no particular schedule, we were only mildly annoyed; as usual in such situations, we remind ourselves that we are surrounded by people who likely put up with this exact scenario every single weekday.

So notwithstanding that we had it in our heads to make it to the lake last night, perhaps to one of the state parks on either side of Selkirk, we were pretty much done by the time we left Syracuse. We passed a Wal-Mart in Cicero, just north of the city, but that one was posted no overnight parking, so we continued across the Oneida River, just at the outlet of Oneida Lake, and another ten miles to this location.

This afternoon, we will try to drive along Lake Ontario all the way to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Thousand Islands on NY-3. US-11 is our backup plan in the event we encounter any low clearance or low weight limits. With any luck, we will be at the Seaway this evening.

Photo by gixlene, used under a Creative Commons license.

4 comments:

  1. Drat, you were so close and I missed ya. Safe travels up in St Lawrence County etc. Todays rains are going to test the leak patrol again though.

    Ned B

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  2. PS. For future reference always take I481 around Syracuse

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  3. Sean & Louise, I spent my Junior year of HS in Massina, NY. while the seaway was being built finished. If you are going farther east, I grew up in Chateaugay, NY on rt 11, where it intersects with hy 374. Steve BessyBus

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  4. Hi Guys, If you went up Rt3 past Southwicks beach SP you went within a few miles of the inlaws, Southwicks has nice sunset views over the lake.
    If you follow the seaway and get to Waddington, near Massena, Coles Creek SP has some good views of the shipping lane. Out on the point it looks as if the ships are going to dock at your campsite. I don't know if the park is open this time of the year, they close on different dates and not always on the same date year to year.

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