Date: 2012-07-13
From: State Park campground

To: Poughquag, NY
Miles today: 0.0

Another most frustrating day here in New York State. We packed up our tent and left the campground to find some breakfast and a new home. Breakfast was an egg roll up at a deli. That was the easy part. Finding a home was not. Out here if you stay close to the trail...there is nowhere to stay it seems. There are no campgrounds that we can find...no name hotels/motels and only 2 Mom and Pops...the first one smelled and was expensive. The second one is the one we are staying at for the next 2 nights...the Pine Grove Motel in Poughquag. By the time we found this place, it was going on noon and so SOS decided not to try hiking because it would be very late before he finished. We had passed a beautiful library nearby so went there for awhile...a 10! I read and SOS slept in the community room...where it said it was open for community activities..I am not sure they meant sleeping but... On to lunch at a place that was recommended to me and was a delight...The Red Line Diner. It is a beautifully done diner that is brand new and just opened in January. (will try to post pictures but have a very slow connection here) Attention to detail is evident everywhere and the food was excellent...a good food choice today! For dessert we went to Maize's Tea Room where we had tea, scones, clotted cream and raspberry jam! A mother and daughter team run the place and we enjoyed talking to them. They came to New York from California with a dream that they have realized. There were pictures on the wall of the dressed up little girls enjoying a tea party here. Another good food choice! Back to the room (after sitting in the parking lot in Fishkill trying to remember where we live)...where SOS slept and I tried for the 3rd time today to add to the post for yesterday. Each time I have "lost" it so am tired of doing it over. The evening was spent relaxing.Road Name of the Day:DOG'S TAIL CORNERS ROAD Just a funny name that struck us both when we saw it...SOS here:Yes my body I believe was saying it was time to rest. After a nap in the library, followed by lunch in Fishkill, I slept some more in our Pine Grove Hotel room. I hope it does not mean I will have trouble sleeping tonight.Trail Mama reminded me that I had not continued my memories of our first week of marriage. As I had said in my journal for July 11th, we spent our first night as a married couple at our friends, Rich and Elise Green. We were supposed to spend our first night at the Brown County State Park On getting up the next morning after our wedding, we were faced with the problem of how we were going to get to the Brown County State Park Lodge. We decided we would return to Fort Wayne and have my Dodge Colt's brakes repaired. This required finding brake shoes for the car. I located an auto supply store that had the parts needed. Rich drove me there to pick them up.Now, Trail Mama and I had to get back to Fort Wayne and find a mechanic to fix the brakes. We checked on flying back to Fort Wayne. I remember it cost $52.00 dollars to fly both of us one way from Indy to Fort Wayne. My parents had given us $50.00 dollars as a wedding gift so all we needed was $2.00 more dollars and we were there. Jutta/Trail Mama called her sister Becky, just before we boarded the plane, to have her pick us up at the airport in Fort Wayne. It took us 20 minutes to fly to Fort Wayne and we had to wait on Becky because it was a 40 minute drive from the Northeast side of Fort Wayne to the airport.By the time we arrived in Fort Wayne it was already late afternoon and the Colt's brakes still needed to be repaired. Trail Mama called her mechanic 1/2 hour before his closing time and ask him to repair the Colt. He said it would have to wait until tomorrow since it was so close to closing time. Trail Mama pleaded her case that she was a newlywed and that we need to go to the Brown County State Park Lodge to start our honeymoon. Her mechanic did not go home, but worked after closing to fix the brakes on the Colt.We drove to the Lodge that evening and arrived late in the morning on the 13th of July. I remember the desk clerk being less than friendly and unhappy about us not showing up on the 11th. The Brown County State Park was a great place to begin our married life together - especially because Trail Mama loves the outdoors. It was also a great place because it is close to Nashville IN and Columbus IN.One thing we did on our honeymoon was to attend a 4-H dress review in the mall in downtown Columbus IN. This brought back memories for Trail Mama because she was in 4-H and she made a dress as one of her own 4-H projects. Being a farm girl she also raised livestock and showed it at the county fair. Two of my favorite stories I love to hear her tell to others is about raising a cow as a 4-H project. The first is when her Dad told her and her two older siblings that he had three calves one for each to raise as a 4-H project. The two older siblings beat her to the barn and picked out their calves first. She got what was left and her cow became the grand champion. The second is on the day of the showing she had gotten her cow all shined up and just before the showing her cow decided to roll in the dirt. She had to get clean her up again and get her ready to show. I often reget I missed out on those early years of Trail Mama's life. It was not to be since I lived in Rome City and she in Bluffton - it might has well been USA and Germany.Another thing we did on our honeymoon was to take a self guided tour of the unique buildings in Columbus IN. Columbus IN has a philanthropist who pays for the fees of famous architects to draw up plans for the building of churches, schools, banks and other buildings in Columbus. In fact, Sunday Morning a tv show on CBS with Charles Osgood did a whole show on the unique buildings in Columbus IN.No visit to Columbus IN would be complete without stopping for ice cream at Zakararos (www.zaharakos.com/) and we did this on our honeymoon. We stopped there again in February when we were in the area preparing for our Appalachian Trail thru hike.Travelling has been a passion of ours. Our honeymoon was only the beginning of many travelling adventures. It also reflected that setbacks like the Vega breaking down would not discourage us. We would overcome those problems together, and the best part is we face them together.