Okay - first, I became a grandma (it's not possible - I am too young, right????) on June 13. DH and I are delighted and we will be trecking across Canada to see DD, DSiL and baby.
Okay, we will be leaving Springfield Ma and taking Interstate 90 heading toward Niagra Falls. (Well, I have to see it once in my lifetime).
So - are there any nice state camp grounds along the way? We are travelling in a pickup truck with a camper on the back. We don't need a fancy place - I am used to wilderness camping.
Our idea is to get reasonably close to Buffalo, then cross the border and see the falls from the Canadian side.
What do you suggest?
Camping in northern NY state
Well, I'm not really a camper, but a really close partner of mine who passed away always enjoyed going hiking in upstate NY. My favs are New Paltz and Lake George areas, great camping sites in there too.
Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz is spectacular amidst a rock cliff and a lake with their beautiful gardens. Any season is such a sight every time you go there but I find fall season the best.
The Sagamore right on Lake George is just breathtaking. Gorgeous in the summer.
Sorry, not much of a help to you, but I just love upstate NY. Given the chance and resources to move or relocate, I will do it in a heartbeat.
Along the Lake Ontario State Parkway there are two nice state parks, Hamlin Beach S.P. and Lakeside Beach S.P. We stayed at each one five and three years ago before we sold our RV. Farther south, the Letchworth state park is also worth visiting, but we did not stay overnight there.
If you are going east from Niagara in Canada, Toronto is worth seeing. Lots of shopping, ethnic eating, and an interesting museum. If you are going west, the Shakespeare festival in Stratford has top notch plays and musicals in multiple theaters and the town itself has nice river strolls and interesting shops. Look for microbrewries near Geulph. Also, if you like plays, the Shaw festival in Niagara-on-the-lake, with almost as many theaters as Stratford, is well worth seeing as well, and there are wineries nearby.
Happy camping!
Of course! Stratford and the Shaw theatre festivals! How stupid of me not to remember! Great tips on the campsites. We are definitely checking those out ^_^
There are a ton of campsites around Niagara Falls, of course.
But, I would suggest Taughannock Falls State Park http://www.taughannock.com/ as an alternative - about an hour and a half away from Niagara Falls.
Make WaterFalls a sort of theme??
Letchworth, mentioned above, also has waterfalls. You can go from Taughannock to Letchworth, then up to Niagara.
Edited to add that around Taughannock Falls is also Buttermilk Falls, Ithaca Falls, and Halseyville Falls.
Edited AGAIN to add : OMG!!! HOW could I have forgotten to mention Watkins Glen with the others?!!? Awesome gorge.
This message was edited Jun 28, 2009 7:47 AM
There is a very nice campground outside of Rochester about an hour from Niagra Falls called Hamlin Beach state park. It is on Lake Ontario. I went to college ot there and we spent a lot of time in this beautiful park.
All of the above!!
I am not a camper but Congratulations on being a Grandma! My younger dd's b-day is also June 13th! :)
Wow - it sounds like we need to plan a future holiday just doing New York state ^_^ Thanks!
Hi Meredith - what do you do for birthdays on Friday the 13th? I guess it doesn't happen that often . . .
Congrats on the G-Baby Michaela!!!! They are so much fun and bring such a serene sense of joy. Have fun holding and kissing the little one!!
My fun is going to be watching DD fuss . . . I am quite relaxed about babies. I start from the premise that they are highly intelligent aliens that need to (1) get used to gravity, (2) learn communications skiils, and (3) cope with mastering a body that keeps changing its proportions.
My daughter is taking it all very seriously - she has hardly slept the last two weeks. The midwife made a mild comment about the baby losing a bit of weight (like all babies do in the first few days). So DD was nursing, then breast-pumping, then tube feeding the baby, then sleeping (briefly) then starting all over again. Go figure . . . She would even wake the baby to "stay on schedule" - like the baby wouldn't know when he was hungry! Man, I would never wake a sleeping baby - ever!
I think DD will be horrified at how causual DH and I regarding babies. We are very concerned about safety - eg. car seats, baby-proofing the home, etc. But we assume that the baby knows when it is hungry, when it needs to be changed, and when it needs to sleep.
HOLD EVERYTHING.
I am an Ithaca native and Buttermilk Falls is not the same as Taganock Falls.
Buttermilk Falls is not that great, its almost in town.
Treaman State Park is a better bet if your camping in the Ithaca area. Taganoch is about 1/2 hour up the west side of Cayuga Lake from Ithaca.
Check NYState camping.
Seandor the funny thing is my other DD's B-day is on July 13th, so the odds of having at least one on a fri. the 13th are a little higher! lol
I know that feeling of needing to wake a sleeping baby up to feed them. My first DD lost too much weight and the doctor's even had me bringing her into the office for weight checks on the weekend when she was first born. I think part of the problem is they are used to the weight gain of mostly bottle fed babies, so their charts don't work well for monitoring breast fed. They had me worried and crying for the first 3 months of her life! So I feel for her. My sweetie would sleep so long without waking for a feeding, that it didn't seem right, even to me. They called her a sleepy baby and I ended up needing to use a breast shield to help her suck better. Then the hardest part was getting her off of it. I wish your daughter the best, hopefully she can find some supportive lactation consultants like I did.
Well, there is no lack of support for breast feeding in Victoria, BC. I think it is a shame that the first three months was so challenging for you. And I think you are onto something . . . if weight-gain charts were based on bottle-fed babies, who really knows how out of whack those charts might be!
As long as the baby is gaining weight, it shouldn't matter about the charts.
I think Colben is just doing fine. DD is - well, a bit of a fanatic. She took her dog to "puppy kindergarten," for goodness sakes. Not that it's a bad idea to get puppies used to interacting appropriately with other dogs and dog owners - but you get the idea.
Hope you have a wonderful time visiting her, and that you find a wonderful place!
That's the problem Jumper, they don't always gain as much as the charts want as fast as they want. But they are using an average between bottle fed and breast fed babies. I think breast fed babies are sometimes naturally smaller than they would be if they were given bottles.