Road Trips and Hike Reports

  Whetstone Gulf State Park North and South trails (as guided by 50 hikes in Central NY ) Basics: Length - ~ 5 miles Elevation gain - Estimated at 600 feet Nearest city - Lowville, NY This was the same hike we did in April of 2018 . Several things were different this time.  First, Brian wasn't with me.  Second, there was only a slight dusting of snow and ice to be found. It's an amazing natural site and seemingly a lightly visited one at least during the winter.  Read the previous entry for more details.  This isn't the easiest place to photograph.  The views into the gorge were usually obscured with close up bushes or tree branches.  The trail is as much as 300 feet above the stream below and almost the entire trail is within eyesight if not one wrong step away from the nearly vertical walls.  Still, there weren't a lot of really great shots.  Here are the new photos: After lunch in Lowville I did about 10 miles north on NY-812, allegedly the quietest roa

Once we got off the train we were very busy and I totally forgot I had been blogging this trip. So I'm writing it two months after the last entry. Train: My mom learned very definitely that long distance train travel isn't for her.  She didn't sleep the first night which didn't surprise me.  Unfortunately, the 2nd night was no better.  Both those nights were on the Oregon to Chicago train (Empire Builder) in our family bedroom.  One thing unique to the family bedroom (and maybe the accessible bedroom) that is different from the majority of the rooms which are Roomettes or Bedrooms is that the 2 adult size beds in the family bedroom are both across the train car or perpendicular to the rails.  All the other room types have the beds parallel to the windows and tracks.  I'm not sure I have a strong preference in terms of sleeping but either going to the parallel bed on the Chicago to Rochester train suited her better or she was finally so utterly exhausted that she did