The Largest Bag of Popcorn

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 campground was over. It sounds like we’ll be able to hang out for a few more days.

We were shopping at Tops Friendly Market which is a grocery store chain we’ve never been to before. This is probably a record for us finding a new chain so close to home. You expect that in Utah or Kansas, but in New York? So, as usually happens, the short trip to the grocery store turned into a long trip. We got there around 4pm and didn’t leave until around 5! Some of that is not knowing where things are and some of it is checking out local things, like the largest bag of popcorn either of us have ever seen.

The parking lot was huge so we were able to open the slide with the fridge on it. That makes loading items into the fridge SO much easier.

We soon were off I-90 passing through the cute little town of Port Byron.

Crossing the Seneca River.

We came across this strange plowing pattern. We have no idea why some of the rows weren’t harvested.

What a gorgeous farm!

The road into the campground was narrow. Some reviewers thought it was nasty. It wasn’t. It was just a gravel road.

Check in was a breeze. We got to talking with one of the owners for a bit. Very nice guy. At our site we started the leveling and hooking up and dumping. While waiting for the water tank to fill (with really foul tasting water), Paul checked out this Galion EZ-Lift Leaning Wheel Grader. (We’ll go into detail about the grader and the history of the area tomorrow.)

Now about that water. We’re so glad that we still had 10 gallons of “extra” water in one of our cargo bays. We brought that since we didn’t know how much water we would use at the fair. (We have 70 gallons of fresh water and used about 75% of that over the 6 days we were at the fair. So we’ll drink and cook with those 10 gallons until we can buy more water later. (susan here: I think this is the 2nd worst water we’ve encountered. The first being Baytown, TX. The water we are getting at this campsite is probably the hardest water we’ve encountered to date. Nearly impossible to get a lather. While it’s a cute old school campground the water situation makes returning here a deal breaker.)

Susan went to run a load of laundry and found it wasn’t working. Paul investigated and we had an “Open Ground” fault displayed on our surge protector. This is the sort of thing that, if ignored, can pass electricity through your body to the ground. Certainly not ideal. Paul went to the office but had closed so he just plugged into an adjacent, and vacant, campsite next to us.

And speaking of buying, Paul finally got his electric bug zapper! He’s wanted one forever but just kept on forgetting to find one. And they had them at the Camp Store.

Meet Frank, Frank Zapper.

Daily: 45 miles

Total: 342 miles

Driving miles/Day: 114 miles/day 

Overall miles/Day: 49 miles