Not The Painter

September 3, 2025 — Day 14 Green Lakes State Park, Fayetteville, NY We stayed up so late we all slept in. We all decided that wanted to explore the park, maybe see some birds and have a walkabout. Coincidentally about a month ago Paul had come across the freshwater reef known as Deadman’s Point and there it was on the map of the park! When we booked this park we had no idea that the strange colored water and Deadman’s Point were here. Remember the docent at the canal museum? He did say we should make it down to the lake to see blue and green water. Green Lake itself…

September 2, 2025 — Day 13 Great Lakes State Park, Fayetteville, NY We hung around in the morning, trying to figure out where to spend the rest of the week. Donna and Bill were arriving today. Our section of the campground was full, we had to move and we also wanted to be near them. So we drove around a found two spots a few sites apart from each other. Perfect. We were about to head into Syracuse to the Erie Canal Museum when they arrived at the campground. We met at the office, they booked their site, we moved tonight’s reservation to the new spot and added two more…

August 30, 2025 — Day 10 Rivers Crossing Campground, Savannah NY Paul walked from the RV down to the Seneca River Barge Canal, aka Erie Canal, remember it has 3 iterations, the Original Erie, the Enlarged Erie, and the current configuration known as the Barge Canal. Paul wanted to see what birds were there. There were about a score of Ring Bill Gulls, a Great Blue Heron and a Great Egret actively feeding. Paul got some great shots and thought he had one of the egret with a medium size fish it its beak but the camera malfunctioned and the image wasn’t captured. (susan here: an alternative explanation is that…

August 29, 2025 — Day 9 Rivers Crossing Campground, Savannah NY Lots of Life Maintenance this morning. We’re almost done with laundry. Yes, clothes get dirty when you are on the road, just like home. After lunch we headed out to the nearby Lock 25. Paul really wanted to see a lock. On the way to that lock, we passed a sign for May’s Pond, a birding hotspot in the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge. The plan was to hit the lock first, then do bird stuff. But bird stuff showed up first so it was birds before locks. (susan here: birds wait for no one. Even Paul.) Warning: There will be…

August 28, 2025 — Day 8 Rivers Crossing Campground, Savannah NY This morning Paul was thinking about what the employee told him last night, Clinton or Clayton’s something or other and he couldn’t remember exactly what it was called. So he called on ChatGPT. (susan here: the new Google but not as accurate and I’ll never use it.) I’ll try not to talk too much. But AI is all in the news these days. There are very good things and very bad things about AI. But what is good is that it make for a very good search engine, because you interact with it. You don’t type “Erie Canal History”…

August 27, 2025 — Day 7 New York State Fair, Syracuse NY — Rivers Crossing Campground, Savannah NY We got off to a super late start. Paul sort of wanted to go the circus and the first show was at 1pm. We hung around the coach and around quarter to one we realized that we were kind of “faired-out.” So we headed next door to hang out with Donna and Bill. They weren’t doing any fair things because their AGS (Auto Generator Start) wasn’t working properly. While just sitting around talking, we started talking about what to do after the races as Oswego were over and our stay at our…

August 26, 2025 New York State Fair, Syracuse NY Let’s go! Lots of photos today, we’ll try not to type too much. First stop was the lumberjack show. We picked the best seats in the house which turned out to be the worst for photography. We’re so lame. While waiting, Paul took a great “art” shot, whatever that is, of the gondolas. The lumberjack on the left came up to us before the show. He was also a camera geek. He talked cameras with us and that was fun, even if he is a Canon shooter. (Note, we both used to be Canon, so we’re poking fun at ourselves here.)…

August 25, 2025 — Day 5 New York State Fair, Syracuse NY Everyone was on a slow roll today. About 12:30 Susan and Paul headed over to the Chevrolet Court to see Slippery When Wet, a Bon Jovi cover band. Paul can’t name a single Bon Jovi song without Google. Susan knows who they are and some of their hits. Bill tolerates them. Donna loves loves loves them. Donna did not enjoy the concert. She had been really looking forward to it. Susan, Paul and Bill were not available for comment. We got some good photos though. We forgot to mention what we had observed at the Los Lonely Boys…