2008 Camping

In July of 2008 we travelled to the other side of Lake Ontario. Our first stop was Hamelin Beach State Park in Northern New York State. We used this as a base to do some sight seeing in Rochester. The George Eastman House in particular. We also did a bit of shopping in the outlet centres. It was here that I bought my Apple MacBook.

The beach on the southern shore of Lake Ontario at Hamelin Beach State Park

The conservatory of George Eastman's mansion in Rochester. George Eastman was the founder of the Kodak company. The house has a wonderful museum attached to it. It is well worth the visit.

Site 50 Watkins Glen State Park

We then moved on to Watkins Glen State Park, where had a wonderful large site. We were able to put the Patty-O-Room up, which gave us a ton of more living space.

A New Baby in the Family!!

((Photos from my online photo album were deleted..will repost soon))


Our new baby is here at last and it is a Boy!! Noah Alexander Robertson. He was born on Saturday June 10th at 9:38 pm. His birth was rather quick so he had a bit of "wet lung" and spent the first night in the Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery under observation. Here are some photos of this adorable little human. Who knew that someone so little could have so much power over such besotted people! The next morning Noah came out of Intensive care and just had to go back every few hours for his dose of antibiotics. He was able to stay with Mom and Dad in their room. Today all the family came to visit. Here are some of the pictures that were taken. Great Grandpa holds Noah. It will be 2092 before Noah is the same age as Great Grandpa is today!
Suzanne and Sandy are pretty pleased with Noah. He is such a beautiful baby.

Sympatico Unplugged

We have discovered Sympatico Unplugged. This is a new high speed internet service using the cell phone towers and transmitters. All you need is a modem and a power outlet. As long as you are in a coverage area, you can pick up internet wirelessly. Presently this is only in the major centres, but will roll out over most of the populated areas of Canada over the next few years. Rogers has a similar service, and Clearwire service is rolling out in the US. This may well be a cheaper alternative to Satellite Internet. Of course Satellite Internet (Datastorm/Motosat) will always be the best service for coverage area as you can be in middle of nowhere and still get connected, but for the casual user, this may be something worth looking at.

A wonderful aluminum table

I must tell you about the fantastic aluminum table we bought at Loblaws! At the end of summer, last year, we were shopping at our local Loblaws and saw some aluminum roll top tables on sale. It comes in a bag and is easily assembled. The top is roll top aluminum and it fits onto the scissor legs. It is steady, light and very sturdy. We like to have our "kitchen" outside and have all our electrical appliances on a table. We used to have a Coleman folding camping table, but it has a particle (?) board top. After the first summer the top started to sag and it became impossible to get a level surface to work on. We are thrilled with this new table. As soon as I have some photos of t I will post them.

A Great Weekend!

The weather turned out sunny, but cold. We had a very nice site right next to Lake Ontario. Everything in the trailer worked just fine and we were very cozy. Our Rockwood has a heated mattress which is wonderful when it is just above freezing outside. There were not many campers, just a handful of motorhomes, trailers and pop-ups plus a few hardy tent campers. It was so cold after the sun went down, that the tent campers over the road from us packed up and left in the night.

We took a long walk along the lake shore to the bird sanctuary in the GM plant grounds. There were birds everywhere (I guess that's because it's a bird sanctuary). We saw a lovely little Canada goose family swimming in the bay. The swans were swimming around with their wings all plumped up and they looked so regal!

There were a lot of fishermen on the bay. I wonder what they catch? We have only seen carp in the water, but I guess there must be other fish there.

This was the first weekend that Darlington was open, so we were able to stay beyond the 2 pm deadline because no-one else was booked on the site. We packed up slowly, re-organizing cupboards as we went. We are deciding what we can get rid of so that trailer will be lighter for the long trip down to the States in August. How did we accumulate so many chairs?? Two umbrellas? 4 tables? 2 kettles? These extras have to go.

I am off again 2 weeks and we are booked at Darlington again for the long weekend. Suzanne's baby is due soon, so we won't be going anywhere too far away.