July 7 and we are back on the road, on the way to Colorado. We left after 9am and made several stops on our way west. We decided to take the route below Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to join the highway west to Colorado as I have never seen these parts before. Not much to report except a few wild turkeys on the side of the road. And for our Australian friends – they have Aldi stores in NY, so we had to stop and shop there. Leon was happy to report that the carts do not have all wheels that rotate like in Australia. That made manoeuvering so much easier.
We were hoping to stop in Erie, Pennsylvania, about 170km past Buffalo, NY, maybe somewhere along the Lake Erie shore, but we started seeing lots of vineyards around these parts, so we decided to investigate the area and stop for the night.
We turned off in Westfield, which turns out to be the former head office of Welch’s, the grape juice people. No wonder there are so many vineyards around here! The town is old and shows signs of its former prosperity. But I don’t think they have a very large grape operation here anymore. We decided to visit an established winery – Johnson’s (about 51 yrs old). As usual, we had a wine tasting (5 free tastes for me, nothing for the driver, Leon). I settled on a bottle of Chambourcin as it tasted fruity but not too dry. We bought 2 bottles as our wine tasting instructor had told us you should always buy 2 bottles in case it’s delicious and you wish you had more. As we left the winery, we stopped for fresh potatoes, green beans, onions and peaches. I must say, the growing season is much longer on this side of the lake than in Canada!
We stopped at a KOA campground for the night. Dinner was bbq pork chops and all those yummy veggies along with the wine. Well the wine turned out to be not so good. I am not sure if that bottle is turning or it’s just that my tastebuds were off at the winery. At any rate, I had a glass but Leon couldn’t drink it. I almost opened the 2nd bottle to check if the wine was just bad, but I just didn’t bother. Dinner was great anyway. We did some of the crossword from the Saturday paper and came inside the camper as it got too dark to sit outside.
Tomorrow we will continue our route west stopping on the lakeshore to see an old lighthouse nearby and view the shoreline which looked lovely when we drove in this evening.
Turning my world upside down! 