Yesterday we moved 125 miles from Niagara Falls to
Prattsburgh which is about 20 miles south of Canandaigua Lake in the Finger
Lakes country. It looks just like home but with lower mountains.
Our campground is in a valley with minimal phone service, no Verizon hotspot,
no over-air TV reception and internet only at the office which is too far to
walk to. The road is so bad we will go in and out only once a day so I’ll
write emails at night and send them in the morning. Our “space” is in a
lumpy and sloped grass field wherever we want to park as long as its close
enough to the hook-ups. We couldn’t get level in the first place we tried
so had to move to a second spot.
We’re in this area to do more family research so, once we
finally got set up and ate lunch, we headed off to the library in Naples.
They have a good genealogy section but we didn’t find anything we were looking
for. The Village Clerk’s office didn’t have records back as far as we
needed so we struck out there too. Naples is a lovely little town with
lots of picturesque houses and businesses. Wineries are big in this area,
too. The Finger Lakes are famous for them.
A residential section of Main Street in Naples, NY.
Part of the business
section of Main Street. The low brick building across the street is the
library which was exceptionally nice with a very helpful librarian.
Southern end of Canandaigua Lake with the mountain called
High Tor across the water. It comes right down to the water (and
continues underneath) but there are still houses all along the shoreline,
squeezed in tight between the mountain and the water. We drove down one
of the little roads trying to find a place to take a picture and nearly got
stuck in there. The road was obviously not built for extra-wide trucks
and we had to go all the way to the end to get turned around. In some
places we had just a few inches clearance on either side.
The southern tip of the lake where the West River runs out
to the south and then turns east. (No idea why was it named
“West”.) On an 1855 county map this land was owned by Jim’s
great-great-great-grandfather Amos Mabie who later moved to Cedar Springs,
MI. Ducks Unlimited is managing a habitat improvement program here now so
it probably doesn’t look anything like it did in 1855.
The West River southeast of the lake. Jim’s
great-great-grandfather Israel Chapin Smith had a steam sawmill operation along
the banks of this river in the mid-1800’s. All evidence of industrial use
in this area is gone. There aren’t even any houses visible from
here. Things have obviously changed a great deal since then.
We discovered this morning we’ve got an electrical problem
with our hydraulic system that controls the slides and levelers. After
much time on the phone with the Lippert Components the best guess is an
about-to-die breaker. We’re hoping we can find the right part at an auto
parts store in Canandaigua and that Jim can replace it. If it fails completely
we are stuck with the slides and levelers in whatever position they’re in at
that point. We’re on our way to Canandaigua right now to do more family
research as well as hunt for the part. If Jim can’t fix it we’ll have to
find a shop that can repair it, hopefully Monday, and probably have to cancel
our next one or two stops. Fingers crossed.
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