Randy really loved the waterfront views at Swan Bay Resort from site 201WF. And I must admit I liked it better too! Being able to move down to the waterfront for the last 2 weeks of our stay has been wonderful. While we did have some walk-by traffic from people going to and from the Price Chopper pier, it was definitely quieter there than our previous site @ 114 up on the hill. I used the foot traffic to work with Skippy on reducing his barking at people and dogs. He met a few people that loved him and he loved getting the attention. He definitely made strides in reducing his barking at people. If I alerted him before a dog approached he was also much better. He would still bark but I could usually get him back under control using “heel” or with a treat. However, if a dog snuck up on us without me noticing, Skippy would go back to his whining and barkng with only limited success on getting him to calm down. We still have work to do! Skippy also got a little time on the boat as well as in the water. I enticed him into swimming by bribing him with cheese. He still does not love the water, but he is not afraid of it now, and knows he can swim with his life vest.
Monday thru Thursday mornings are still the best times of the week as this is mostly a weekend campground, even though it was pretty full the last 2 weeks. I think everyone was trying to get those last few vacation days in before school started and the weather turns colder in a few weeks. It was warm enough during our visit for me to even get in the pool!
The waterfront site also made it nicer when we had friends visit. Bob and Gail were able to get a site in the park for their RV and Bill and Cheryl stayed a few miles away at Otter Creek Inn in Alexandria Bay. With the fantastic views it made sense to gather at our site for a few of the meals. We got together several times for shared dinners at the RV; even introducing Bob and Gail to my salad and the Gianelli Italian sausage that we love. It was great having others share in the food prep! Plus dinners out were great too. Randy and I got to the Island Pier House, Bella’s and Foxy’s sometimes by ourselves and sometimes with the gang. They did several solo tours of the local vineyards and distilleries but we joined them for the Coyote Moon tour. We wanted to replenish our stock of Twisted Sister wine and at the tasting we even found a new Pink FireBoat that we really liked. It is a mix of their FireBoat red and whte. I knew we should have more, so we went back for a second visit to get a few more bottles of the FireBoat wine.
We were pleasantly surprised when Kat made a last minute trip to join us for a few days at the end of our stay. She had been so busy with work we did not think she could get any time off to visit. Hopefully she liked her tour of the St. Lawrence River, the Boldt Castle and Tibbetts Point Lighthouse while here. Since she came over the weekend she also got to meet Bill and Gail for our last get together with them. Fortunately we got to also spend some time with Bill and Gail. We went to Eva’s, Rainbow Shores and Azteca with Bill and Gail. Bill was generous and on our last night together he supplied the steaks which he also grilled. They were delicious!
I definitely missed having more time this summer visiting the Thousand Islands area. We did not get nearly enough time exploring the area and missed visiting with others that could not make it while we were there. The worse part of this trip was the ride home. I knew they were calling for rain on Tuesday, but I did not expect for it to rain almost the entire afternoon. The normal 6 1/2 hour trip took almost 10 hours. There were at least 2 accidents where semi’s jackknifed and tied up traffic. The longest delay was where part of 81 was closed due to Biden’s visit to Wilkes-Barre. Probably the thing that frustrated Randy the most about our trip home was my slow driving in the rain! There are more trucks than cars on 81 and it was definitely no fun for me! I hate driving at any time, but driving in the pouring rain gave me a lot of stress. At least I was not towing the trailer this time as we left the golf cart at home. I need to do a better job planning our drives and find other campgrounds where we can stop when weather is bad. Or better yet, plan our entire trip around the weather like we did when we traveled by boat. I was definitely glad to get home!
