#189 - We see a Great Lake - July 8, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Lake Ontario as as big as an ocean.  Wow.

The rain hit us at about 2am, pounding on the roof of the tent.  I listened to it for a few minutes, and got ready to get up and put a tarp over the tent.  I had brought one just for this eventuality. Katrina told me to not bother, the tent had dealt with this kind of rain all week at girls' camp, and it would be fine.  So I laid there.  I slept okay, and when the sun came up, I got up and dressed.  I cleaned up camp as much as I could with Katrina sleeping.

Our agenda today was simply to get home by 4pm.  We had the missionaries coming over for dinner, and needed time to make food.  Anything else along the way would be gravy.  I had packed the van, with the exception of the beds and tent, by 6 or so, and read a little in a book called "Quiet".  I may have mentioned it before, but it's excellent.

Katrina got up, and while she was gone to take care of her morning stuff, I packed up the beds and tent, and we got rolling.  I had found a route home that took us along lake Ontario for 60 miles or so, and this proved to be the only cool thing about our trip home.  We stopped at Krull County Park in Olcott for breakfast.  Simple - we had my leftover blueberries to share, bananas, and bagels with strawberry cream cheese.  And we watched the ducks and the fish in Lake Ontario as we ate.

Katrina, on our bench overlooking Lake Ontario.

My brother had texted me, as well.  They had been rained out, and were packing up and coming home.  They would be at our house in the afternoon.

I knew the Great Lakes were huge, but I had not expected them to feel that expansive.  Putting on my historical hat, early explorers must have been shocked by it when they found it.  It looks like an ocean, but we couldn't see evidence of tides or waves, and the water is fresh.  I suppose they would have quickly deduced a huge inland lake.  Still, the thought of being on the middle of the lake and losing the horizon on all sides of the boat kinda shocks my sense.

The route took us through the outskirts of Rochester (birthplace of Kodak cameras), and then through Syracuse, and then we headed SE on rte 17 to Middletown.  We had selected this route because it cut diagonal through the state and was not an Interstate.  Therefore, I assumed, more scenic than the I-87, I-90 route we had taken to get to Niagara.  It was not in any way better.  It cost us more than an hour of extra time, was not any more scenic (there is a 30-ft wall of trees on both sides of the road almost the whole way, and it doesn't stop in cute little towns), and put us right in the middle of a "severe weather warning" are for lightning, which also slowed us down.

We got home around 3:30, did the prisoner exchange with my brother, and I put together curry.  Katrina put the rice in.  And then it was just us again.  The missionaries showed up, we had a nice time, and then we slept.  We were all exhausted.

Is that a theme for us?  Maybe so.  I'm not sure it's a bad thing, as long the exhaustion is caused by goodness.  This certainly was.