A Tale of Two Visits - Galway and Albany, New York

Normally, we don't devote our blog to visits with friends and family, because we're not sure how interesting that would be to all our other friends and family.  We think the outdoor adventures are generally most blogworthy and, because we hope the blog will serve as our memory, those are the adventures we are most likely to need help remembering in detail.

Nevertheless.

This situation is different.  Due to Covid-19, we've been sheltering in one Pennsylvania campground for the last three months.  Our decision to move up to a campground in the Adirondacks to visit some close friends and family was therefore an important event.  Things have opened up enough that we had confidence we could plan and make the trip without stumbling over coronavirus restrictions.

The friends we visited, Eric and Ginny LaJuene, are also full-time RV'ers.  On top of that, they are the RV'ers we have known the longest, and were the first full-time couple we met, at an Escapees rally in North Carolina in March 2012.  They are from Schenectady, New York and are camped up in that area to visit family and attend to various personal matters.

The family we visited was David's brother Laird, his wife Risa, and their two children, Isaac and Hannah.  They have lived in Albany for decades and we always enjoy driving up to see them.  We hadn't seen them for nearly 2 years and were eager to catch up on things.

Eric and Ginny are staying at a campground in Galway, New York, in the gateway to the Adirondacks.  It's called McConchie's Heritage Acres Campground, and it is quite pretty:

We moved up on Monday, June 22, 2020.  The cats all yelled, "What is a Move Day!?!?"  They had forgotten what a move day involves.  Everything get's packed up and their home rocks and rolls down the road -- in this case for over 6 hours.  We arrived in Galway mid-afternoon, got set up, took Baxter and Ruby for a walk, and settled in to a very folksy Happy Hour and dinner with Eric and Ginnie, who offered to provide dinner.  Being burned out from the road, we gratefully accepted.

Tuesday, June 23, was "Eric & Ginny Day."  After they finished some personal business in the morning, we met their son Adam, chatted briefly with him about Star Trek and other important issues, then set off (appropriately socially distant in our respective cars) on a mission Kathy selected to pick up some scrumptious smoked sausage at Oscar's Smokehouse in Warrensburg, New York.  It was a drive of a little over an hour.  We got some pretty views of the Hudson River --

-- before finding that our GPS's had taken us on a very "scenic" route to Warrensburg:

In fact, it was quite pretty.  A highlight was Viele Pond, which we paused at to admire and photograph before we started down the mountain into Warrensburg:

It was not long before Oscar's appeared and we turned at its unique sign:

We picked up some smoked sausage, some 7-year old smoked cheddar and one or two other things, then paused in front of one of the old brick smokehouses for a selfy before piling back into our cars to start the drive home:

To say that Oscar's makes the best sausage we've ever tasted is no bull --

-- We first tasted the Oscar's sausage at Grandma's restaurant in Albany while visiting Laird and Risa some years ago.  We had asked the restaurant manager where they got the sausage, and have since made it a point to visit Oscar's whenever we happen to pass through the Adirondack Region.

After Oscar's, we took a roundabout route home, heading west toward Great Sacandaga Lake, a flood control reservoir which now is a popular recreation area and the site for numerous vacation homes lining its shore.

On the way to the lake, we passed through some quaint towns with some historic buildings:

Eventually, we reached the Hudson River above Albany --

-- and crossed one of the dams that create the lake, reaching the so-called South Shore:

The day featured big skies and dramatic clouds, which, together with a strong breeze, gave the lake a dynamic character, but we also noted a possible thunderstorm approaching from the southwest:

We had enough time to catch some quiet, reflective views at some of the inlets:

Our lunch spot was closed for Covid-19, so we were forced to improvise, and purchased quick lunches at a Stewart's Shoppe in Binalboin.  After, we drove east to Saratoga Springs, where we stopped in at Artisinal Brew Works to sample some of their tasty Belgian beers and chocolate stout.  The brewery has an outside sitting area where we could tipple safely while maintaining social distance.  Here, Ginny and Eric toast the success of New York to date in corralling the coronavirus:

Kathy and David looked a bit more relaxed, and, in fact, David looked as if a little crapulence had crept into his spirit(s):

Don't believe your eyes:  it was a sober event.  We headed home after having a glass each, and Kathy pulled out a smorgasbord of dishes we had received in this weeks box of meals from Stoudt's Brewery and Restaurant here in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, where we are camped -- thus returning Ginny's dinner favor of the night before.

A sound sleep and a couple of cat walks later, on the morning of Wednesday, June 24, we drove over to Albany to see our family there.  They had kindly set up a socially distant conversation pit in the backyard, complete with color-coordinated lawn furniture, and we spent a hearty 10 hours catching up on all things big and small -- moving clockwise from the left -- Laird, Hannah, her boyfriend Zeke, Risa, Isaac's empty chair (he was behind the camera), Kathy, and David:

Risa was in her finest Saratoga regalia and held court under her courtly umbrella, while Hannah and Zeke relaxed in the background:

Meanwhile, Kathy, David and Laird discussed the finer points of wearing masks and completing elbow bumps.  Laird also brought us up to date on his research and writing project.  Isaac, meanwhile, continued snapping photos, to our everlasting thanks:

Late that evening, as the sky was darkening, we made our way back to our campground in Galway.  With the morning of Thursday, June 25 (after the obligatory cat walks), we said our goodbyes to Ginny and Eric, who gifted us with a package of those classic Necco wafers that so many Boomers know and love.  We brought them home and, to our surprise, the next time we looked at them, we found that little Ruby had tossed them to floor, paddled them around like a hocky puck, and sampled the wafers through the wrapper:

We didn't have a chance to ask Ruby whether she liked Neccos, because we had a very long, construction-and-traffic-accident accented, 7 hour drive home to Pennsylvania.  After such a hard drive, we slept soundly Thursday night and woke with the sun to find out what Ruby the Tortoise-Shell Cat had planned for us today.