Thousand Islands and I Forgot My Cameras

We took a road trip on Tuesday and Wednesday, with Anne's brother Andy and his wife, Mary Kay to the Thousand Islands. We had talked about going sometime and they decided that we should get going at 6:00 am on Tuesday morning. Six o'clock in the morning! That means we got up at 5:45 am. I thought those hours of the day were obliterated since I retired, but they're still there. Fortunately I don't see them very often. I volunteered to drive, so I drove to Alexandria Bay, NY, about a three hour drive. We stopped at a diner / truck stop near Route 81 for breakfast and it took a little longer than I would have liked to get served and eat, but we got to the Uncle Sam Boat Tour on time to catch the 10:00 o'clock boat. It was a nice ride, but as I said in the title I forgot my cameras - both of them. The evening before I charged the batteries, got them in a small camera bag and was all ready to go, except they didn't go.

 I had been looking for a 400 or 500 mm lens for my Nikon, but the prices for Nikon glass were really high, but as I was looking I discovered a new breed of point and shoot cameras with long lenses. You can't interchange lenses, but they cost about $400 to $500. dollars, much cheaper than a Nikon lens and, you get a whole camera for that price. I started by looking at a Nikon Coolpix, but figured that since lenses were not interchangeable, I didn't have to stick with Nikon. I settled on a Sony with a Carl Zeiss 28 to 820 mm f2.8-f 5.6 lens. It takes pictures, movies and I think it gets the coffee going in the morning. I also have an older Pentax waterproof point and shoot that also takes videos which also had its battery charged and was patiently waiting for its owner to remember to take it along. I got the Pentax several years ago for kayaking and canoeing and it works fine. It's very small and fits nicely in the breast pocket of my PFD (Personal Flotation Device), or my pant's pocket so it's nice to take along. It takes superb pictures and videos. It should go with me everywhere. The Sony is a little bulkier, a little smaller than my Nikon, but a whole lot lighter, but, it doesn't fit in my pocket.

Anyway, here we are on the boat tour and I don't have a camera. Fortunately, Andy brought his point and shoot and was gracious enough to give me his card so I could download all 162 of his pictures. Any pictures with this post were taken by my brother-in-law.

There are actually one thousand eight hundred and some islands in the "Thousand Islands," but we didn't see anywhere that many. We got off the boat at Boldt Castle and then traveled by launch to an island with the Boldt Boat House on it, which was more impressive to me than the castle. Well, it had boats. The castle was started in about 1894 by George Boldt the former owner of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and other companies. He was building it for his wife as a retreat for them when she suddenly died in 1904. He sent a telegram to immediately stop work on the castle and never returned there again. The castle fell into disrepair but was  acquired by the Thousand Island Bridge Authority that is restoring it to the point of construction when Mrs. Boldt died. It is big and shows what kind of a house any of us super rich can have. The boathouse has doors big enough to allow a sailing vessel to sail right in with the mast still up.

It was fun boating along through the islands on the St. Lawrence River, especially being in Canadian waters for part of the ride. Since we weren't getting off the boat in Canada we didn't need passports. We passed a Canadian police boat and the men on board smiled and waved at us. We were also followed for a while by an apparently empty cargo ship heading East. Ships use the St. Lawrence to travel all the way to Michigan. The larger ships bypass Rochester because it doesn't have a deep enough port for them.

This year is the bicentennial of the War of 1812, which was a pretty big deal along the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. Every town is celebrating.  After leaving Alexandria Bay we stayed overnight in Watertown.

 The next morning we proceeded to Sackets Harbor and visited the 1812 Battlefield State Historic Site. We had a very nice tour of a commandant's house built around 1840. The plans had to be modified for the cold climate in upstate New York. At the time the Navy had one set of plans for one type of house for this rank of officer. It was a very nice house, but was designed for Virginia. Our state park guide was very interesting.

After our tour, we headed back along the Seaway Trail (Route 3 and Route 104) stopping at Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. Route 104 is a rather rural road with very little development along it, so it was somewhat of a surprise that in Williamson, about a half hour from home, we passed a fairly new Rolls Royce dealership. Less than a mile away was a Chevy dealership and not a whole lot else. Since we have been here I have not actually seen a Rolls automobile. I saw them back in New Jersey, but not here. Various magazines have rated this area very high for families and as a good value in a place to live. Maybe I should check my portfolio.