Forging Our Way

Today was a travel day for us. We had said our goodbyes to our hosts Rosy and Lou last night. I was up early and we pulled out at 8:00. First I headed over to the cheapest place around for diesel. And came smack up against one of the annoyances of travel in a Motor Home. I needed about 50 gals of fuel but the pump shut off at 22. So, I swiped the card again and got another 22. The delivery system is just not set up for vehicles that take fuel in the quantities we need. At Flying J, I can swipe my loyalty card after my credit card and pump as much as I need on the one delivery, but if I can't get to a FJ, I'm out of luck.

But getting diesel is a piece of cake compared to getting propane. It seemed I could go to any hardware store in town and half the gas stations and some drug stores and get a 20lb. bottle of propane. Now that I've got a 130 gal tank to get filled it's another story. I started by going to a Suburban Propane depot. All sorts of tanks and hoses and trucks and two gals at desks who tell me that there's nobody there who can operated a pump. So I figure, surely I'll find someplace along the road. Well, I did. I stopped and at an Amerigas in Alder Creek with two gals, pumps, hoses, tanks of all kinds, even men, only to be told that I missed the last guy who could do it by 15 minutes. They told me to go to a hardware store. So we kept on going and the search continues tomorrow.

We made it to Old Forge by 11:30 and spent a couple of hours in the Old Forge Hardware store and wandering around town. Old Forge is a classic tourist trap complete with water park but is dear to the heart of every upstate New Yorker I know. It's a small town that most think of as the gateway to the Adirondacks.

Of course, It's not exactly the center of high culture.

But it's home to the Old Forge Hardware Store. Once just an old time source of hardware, now it's all that and more. It's famous for having just about anything you might want or need from nails to packbaskets, books to cast iron pots.It's always fun to browse the aisles.

From Old Forge, we retreated down Route 28 to Forestport Station to a local landmark restaurant called The Buffalo Head. The story goes that when lumbering was the local industry, one of the lumberman lived in a tiny apartment in NYC, one wall of which was adorned with a mounted Buffalo head. His wife gave him the ultimatum and so he brought it north to the Forestport station and hung it on the wall there. When later workers rode the train into the woods, when they were asked what station they wanted to be delivered to, they would answer "Buffalo Head". The current owners took the name for the restaurant when they purchased it in 1962 and it's been there ever since.

 It has a very complete menu and is standing room only on the weekends. We had the prime rib and it was just as we had remembered, one of the best anywhere.

After stuffing ourselves with home made pie we wandered down the road and then followed Rt 12 through Lowville and turned to 812 up to our latest stop. We will spend the week in the driveway here at my cousin's house in New Bremen. More visiting and genealogy.