This shows the gates of the lock starting to close behind us. Note the water line about three feet below the top of the concrete walls; that's how much the water level rose as we sat within the lock compartment. 

Looking down the Erie Canal, heading for the Niagara River. 

The drawbridge at Exchange St. in its normal position for road vehicle traffic. 

Notice that the drawbridge rises straight up from the roadway instead of raising from one side or the other. Both ends raise straight up into the air. The boat's captain said that sometimes driver's of cars waiting respond by raising a finger in the air. Hmm. 

Going under the "straight up" drawbridge at Exchange St. in Lockport. 

When a young man from England wanted to get married to a young lady from Lockport, he couldn't afford to return to England, so he built a replica of the church in his hometown here. 

Caching at Wilson-Tuscarora State Park

Denny volunteered to take me geocaching yesterday so I had to decide which direction to head. We've arrived in this area from the west, south and east so going north was a pretty obvious decision. From this campground, that leads you to the Wilson-Tuscarora State Park and Lake Ontario.

The Wilson-Tuscarora State Park emcompasses 395 acres of woods and marsh along the shoreline of Lake Ontario. The sign board showed that there are four miles of hiking trails and by the time we located the three geocaches planted within the park I think we had walked most of them. The park has been left in its natural state and it is obvious that most folks come here for the fishing or to swim at the small sandy beach as we didn't meet up with a soul on the hiking trail. Part of the reason for that may have been the voracious mosquitoes which gleefully attacked us as the only blood-bearing creatures in sight.

After logging all three finds we stopped by the shoreline for the mandatory "we were here" picture and came across a couple cleaning fish. Since they were already well into the fileting process I asked what type of fish they had caught and the wife told me that had caught Chinook and Steelhead. Salmon in the Great Lakes-who knew? Checking online I found that salmon have been stocked in all the Great Lakes. It's pretty apparent that we don't fish, right? But we do learn a lot while traveling, that's for sure.

And the Beat Goes On

The grandkids visited over the weekend and thus we discovered a leak in our gray water holding tank. There are no sewer hookups at this campground so our holding tanks filled up during the week and with the grandkids over much more water was used because, as you know, kids like to run water. You see, normally at campgrounds with sewer hook ups the valves are pulled open on the holding tanks for the shower and kitchen tanks so the water just flows straight into the sewer and is not held in the tanks. Sitting outside chatting with Steve and Angela we noticed water running down near the wheels of the rig-not a good sign.

We have arranged to detour to the Meyers RV/Camping World store in Hamburg when we leave here on Monday to have them see if the leak can be repaired or if they will have to pull the tank and replace it. This is where being a fulltimer presents a problem. Our home needs repaired so where do we stay? Often, repair shops will pull your rig back out of the shop in the evening if repairs will take longer than one day and allow you to stay in your rig overnight, often having electrical hookups for power. Add to that the complication of having a pet-what do we do with the cat all day while waiting for repairs? This is a new problem for us, although Denny had to deal with it when I was taken to the emergency room after my fall. At that time, Patches spent the 4 hours waiting in the truck while Denny checked on her frequently. This time we'll have to play it by ear depending on the outside temperatures and whether or not they allow pets in their waiting room. We've reserved a motel room just in case. These are the things you don't think about when you decided you are ready for a pet again. And you should, if you are a fulltimer. Because stuff happens. Apparently frequently, in our case. Sigh.

Early Lazy Sunday

Sitting here watching the sun rise in a big orange ball prompted this morning's Lazy Sunday photos. Rising at 5:30 or so each day I often see lovely sunrises, but they are often marred by power lines or telephone poles as this one was today. Add to that the fact that I don't like going outside in my bathrobe to take pictures and you'll understand why you don't see too many sunrise photos here.

Instead, you get more sunsets today. If they are repeats, so be it. Sometimes between the blog, the website and my personal photo albums I lose track. And since it's Lazy Sunday, I'm too lazy to go back and double-check what I've posted in the past. Ah well.

The grandkids are coming today so we'll be playing in the pool and looking for turtles in the pond. Have a good one.

One of my favorite shots of a sunset, taken at Gunnision, Colorado. 

Experimenting with new photo software meant I now have a permanent title emblazened on the photo. I no longer use that software.  

No fancy filters here, just natural gorgeous Arizona sunsets. This one was taken near a field of lettuce in Yuma, AZ. 

In addition to scenic sunsets, this rv park in Gadsden, AL set up a terrific drive-through display of Christmas lights for the general public to enjoy.  

No need to explain where this photo was taken, right? We were camped at the Casino Queen RV Park on the Illinois side of the river which allowed me to take this sunset shot. 

Old Fort Niagara

Most people coming to the Buffalo area visit Niagara Falls. The falls are stunning in the daytime and nighttime both and to be fully experienced should be seen in the summer and winter. But there's much more to see and do in the area and one of the more interesting and historical stops would be Old Fort Niagara on the Niagara River.

The first fortification in the area was built by the French in 1679 and was known as Fort Condi. After an agreement to build a trading post was made with the Iroquois, the French build the "French Castle" which appeared to be a trading post and indeed had one on the lower level, but they also added dormer windows which could be used to shoot cannons and muskets, as well as building a garrison for the troops.

The French maintained control of the fort and the area until 1759 when the British gained control of the fort during the French & Indian War after a nineteen day siege. The British had control of the fort until the American Revolution when they turned it over to the Americans through a treaty agreement in 1796. The British once again captured Fort Niagara during the War of 1812 but ceded to the Americans again at the war's end.

Over the years the fort served as a border post but saw no further conflict. The army removed all its troops in 1963 and the fort now serves as a national and state monument and part of the park system. Which means you can use your Golden Age Passport as well as any other National Park pass to gain free entry to the fort.

During the summer you have the opportunity to see reenactments of battles that occurred at the fort and you can participate in the loading and firing of one of the cannons on the grounds (great fun for the little ones!). Fort Niagara is a fascinating view into the early history of New York and will be enjoyed by young and old alike.

The entrance to Fort Niagara. 

The French Castle of Fort Niagara. 

A view of the French Castle and a redoubt, which is a small advance garrison. 

Volunteers assisting with the cannon loading and firing demonstration at Fort Niagara. 

The Fort Niagara Lighthouse 

A Quiet Day

We're taking it easy at the RV Vagabond househould today. My knee has been hurting, so I decided to give it a rest from the water aerobics and long walk to the swimming pool. Denny and I have been on our respective computers for most of the day-Denny playing on Pogo.com and me experimenting with the new Picasa free web album service. They offer 250 MB of space for your digital pictures, with 6 GB available for $25 a year. At the 'fine' quality setting I use, I was able to upload about 885 photos before I hit the wall. So that was all of 2004 (189 pictures) and about 2/3 of 2005's photos (approximately 695 photos out of 1050 taken). I was hoping to get all of my 2004 and 2005 photos online so I could link the albums to my travel photos page of my website and save the tedious cropping, resizing and uploading process but that's not going to happen.

I must say, if you use Google's free Picasa service to upload your photos to your computer, it's a snap to upload those photos into the Picasa web albums. At the moment the service is in the beta stage, but if you have a Gmail account(which is free) then you can download Picasa and receive an invitation to use/test the beta version here . If you'd just like to try the Picasa digital photo software first, see the link in the right hand column of this page under Google photos.

Want to see the end result? 2004 and 2005 part 1 I'm still uploading on the few remaining MBs of 2005 part 2, after which I'll link them to my website and then get back to work on the more cumbersome method of cropping/resizing/etc. for the rest of the year's photos. Because I'm too cheap to pay for the upgrade which costs more than my web hosting account. A gal has to have some principles, right? Okay, I'm just cheap.

Family Visit

My pictures are a bit of a disappointment because I was playing with my new camera and trying out the 'sports' setting on the camera. I thought it would help with a moving target but I must not have done something right. The near collision between Marissa, our oldest granddaughter, and her younger sister Kara would have been a great picture if it had been in focus. I did get the sense of movement in the picture of Marissa roller blading and of course Kara posed for me on her trike.

Yesterday was much more peaceful around the Braun household. I attended the campground's afternoon water aerobics session of easy stretches and moves and it felt good. I asked if I could bring one of my water aerobics tapes for a change of pace and the instructor was thrilled because she's just filling in and is not really comfortable leading the class. I don't know how well I'll be able to lead today with the gimpy knee but we'll see how it goes. Once I had finally gotten back to the rig (it's a long walk to the pool) we called Steve (our oldest son) to see if he would be willing to help Denny install the new tailgate after we picked it up at Camping World. As a bribe, we offered to buy pizza and wings for the family. He works cheap. That arranged, we drove the 40 miles or so back down to Hamburg to pick up the tailgate, then back up north to N. Tonawanda where Steve and Angela live. Much fuss was made over us by the grandkids (that's a great feeling!) and we had to watch roller blade jumping and tricycle riding and look at boo-boos amid hugs to the older Brauns. The tailgate was installed while Angela and I caught up with the news and ordered dinner to be delivered.

It's amazing how much children can grow in 8 months. Zach will be 14 in October, Marissa will be 10 in September and Kara will be 4 in October and like the song says, I don't remember growing older-when did they? This weekend they'll come to the campground to play in the pond and the swimming pool and to ride their bikes on the grounds without worrying about road traffic. Zach will look for turtles to take to the neighbors, Marissa will sit quietly drawing and Kara will be bouncing off the walls with energy unless we tire her out at the pool. It will be a noisy weekend for us and the cat, who will probably have to find herself a good hiding place in the rig until the kids have gone.

How about that? A blog entry this week without gloom and doom. What a change. Heh.

Another Pothole in the Road of Life

Remember that bent tailgate? It would no longer latch properly so before we left Port Clinton Denny used bungie cords to fasten the gate closed. By 8:46 AM we were on our way to New York, figuring we had a 5 hour trip of about 300 miles. Wrong. Oh so wrong.

I think we were in Pennsylvania when Denny realized the tailgate was hanging open. Pulling off onto the shoulder of a road with a big rig is never fun, but it's less fun on a busy highway on an uphill grade. Denny got out to shove the tailgate back up and that's when the excitement began. Expletives flew because it seems that the bouncing on Ohio's Rt. 2 had joustled our power cord, which connects us to a campground's electrical source, had bounced out of the truck bed at some point. As had one of our water hoses and the bucket that held our two whole-house water filters. I'm sure as the week progresses we'll find something else gone too, but those were the biggies.

No power cord, no power, no TV, no computers. Luckily I had called the Camping World south of Buffalo to order the new tailgate so the number was still on our cell phone. I called them to see if they carried power cords and they had some in stock. Whew. I obtained directions from the young man and asked them to hold one for me. We figured we'd be ahead of the game in a sense as we could also pick up the tailgate without making a separate trip tomorrow as planned. Wrong, or so wrong. Upon arrival at Camping World and receiving the power cord we were told that they had made a mistake when I called about the tailgate; they had none in stock after all because the ones they had were damaged gates that had been returned. Sigh. Another long trip tomorrow if the expected order arrived. Okay, back on the road.

Using the directions in our campground guide I instructed Denny to follow I-190 to Robert Moses Parkway. Wrong again. The tolls for rigs have gone from $1.25 to $4.25 and there were two toll booths on I-190. Following I-290 would have avoided one, although it would have added miles. A trade-off. The gate attendent was very apologetic (apparently she gets yelled at by RVers a lot) about the increased fee which has something to do with the fact that a fifth wheel is tall going over the bed of the truck while a travel trailer being shorter still only pays the $1.25. There was no time to ask her if Class A motorhomes would pay the higher fee.

We now approach what I believe to be our exit. Our first clue should have been the "no commercial trucks" sign, but hey, that could mean anything. We swing around the cloverleaf and at the end of the ramp is the I-190 overpass and a sign that says 12' 0". Okay folks-we're 12'10" which means we would shear off our roof top air conditioner if we drove under that overpass. I called 9-1-1 and the operator said "I just transferred you to the state highway patrol!". Excuse me? I just called! Apparently she was still connected to the state patrol's dispatch center as a man there started laughing and asked if we were stuck by the low overpass. Yep. The gal was still arguing with me that she had already spoken to me while the man was telling me he'd get a trooper or a city police cruiser out there. I told him that was a good thing because now there was a Class C rv stopped behind us also. So we weren't the only ones to make that mistake today.

Eventually both a cruiser and a trooper showed up and the trooper instructed Denny to slowly drive in the center of the two lanes to go under the highest part of the overpass while he watched to see if we'd pass under safely. With lots of yelling about 'bear right, more center, SLOW, SLOW, SLOW!!!' we squeezed under. With traffic stopped behind us, we had no chance to thank the officers, so THANKS!

Now we're on the road to the middle of the city of Niagara Falls and we know that isn't right! The atlas doesn't show a lot of details and I didn't bring the New York map into the truck. Dang. Lots of searching for route signs, Denny is tense, when I finally see a sign for Rt. 104, which is what we want. We're still in downtown Niagara which isn't right, but we're heading east. All of a sudden after cresting a hill we see another overpass with a sign showing the height as 11'. Arrggghh. Fortunately there was a side street right before it that we could turn on without having to back up or try to turn around. At this point Denny is so frustrated he can't talk so we pull over to find out where we are and how to get back to I-190 because we know we aren't where we're supposed to be and we can't go back the way we came because of the low bridge; I don't think the trooper would take kindly to being asked to guide us under the overpass going the other direction, do you? Denny figured out which road he needed to get back to the highway, I figured out which ways we needed to turn to get there and after driving a lot of city streets with crazy New York drivers we finally located I-190 and headed north. We found the second northmost Robert Moses Parkway exit several miles up the road and recognized the area from visiting once before. Finally, at 4 PM we pulled into the campground, were given a site and got set up, although not before it started raining. Naturally.

It was 5:30 before we were both seated, bitter lemon and vodka in one hand, scooping Alabama dip with the other. That was dinner and that was wonderful.

So we're set up and we're good. We'll have to make that long trip back to Camping World whenever they call to say the new tailgate is in, but that's okay because we don't want to worry about losing another power cord (that's very expensive). Life on the road is fun, educational and relaxing for the most part but just because you don't have a permanently fixed residence and you're retired doesn't mean that life doesn't throw roadblocks your way. The intent of this blog is to talk about the fulltime rving lifestyle and the unfortunate things that occur are part of that life. But as I said, we're fine, we've calmed down, we're okay.

Today is a new day.

A More Somber Lazy Sunday

I spent the evening last night preparing some pictures of our travels from 2003 for uploading onto my website. In light of all that has been happening this week in Great Britain and with new security measures being implemented across the country, I thought I'd use these pictures for my Lazy Sunday post.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial is one of the most thought-provoking, moving and tear-inducing locations we have ever visited. Enough said.

"We come here to remember
those who were killed, those who survived
and those changed forever.
May all who leave here know the impact of violence.
May this memorial offer comfort, strength,
peace, hope and serenity." 

168 empty chairs in a field of grass. The small chairs represent the children lost and the large ones the adults. Each has the name of a victim etched in its lighted glass base. 

The Reflecting Pool and the West Gate of the Memorial, with the time of 9:03 cut into the block above the portal. That time stands for the moment the city and its people started to heal. 

The fountain and plaza of the Alfred Murrah building escaped unscathed. 

The old Journal Record building which stood by the Murrah building. It has been turned into the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. The tree at the building's base on the right is the Survivor Tree which was badly damaged in the blast but has revived and is now flourishing. 

This message was spray painted on the old Journal Record building by a search team. 

The personal memorial wall outside the memorial's museum. Originally part of the chain link fence that protected the site during the investigation, a segment was retained after hundreds of visitors left mementos, flowers and notes. Periodically the items are removed, catalogued and stored and the cycle begins again.