Day 82 – Floods, Floods, & More Floods.
By 11 p.m. last night it was raining hard again, and according to this morning’s edition of the Lakeshore Flood Warning, this alert was supposed to continue for 3 days. The campsite next to us was flooding & we were on lakefront property at our site.
Flood! Webster Park Campground, Webster, NY
We needed to get some things at a store & wanted to at least get some pictures of Lake Ontario before departing tomorrow; we headed out around 9:30 a.m., 48 degrees & raining, of course. We stopped at a Starbuck’s, then went to a grocery store, luckily finding everything we needed in one stop. (We needed a few basic items like bread & almond milk and Rob got some supplies to use for cleaning out the RV tanks.) We then drove a short distance to Lake Ontario. There were a lot of people taking pictures and checking out the flooding. We saw evidence of a walkway along the Lake which was underwater, and a small stream which fed into the Lake was flooding over its banks. The erosion had been checked somewhat by the placement of large rocks to protect the shoreline, but the waves were big and crashing over the rocks at times. (It was amazing to me that this was a lake, not an ocean, since all you see is water and waves. There were houses overlooking the Lake; those on bluffs appeared to be safe but I wondered still about the effects of erosion.)
We drove to the “botanical garden” part of the park and Rob took some pictures. We imagine that this is amazingly pretty when the sun is out. Of course, with this weather it was completely empty of visitors.
This area, Webster, NY/Lake Ontario, seemed to be a fairly wealthy area. Some of the houses were quite old, and some were huge, fairly new mansions that were a bit gawdy – a few about the size of a condominium complex but they were only 1 home. The area is quite well-kept & Webster Park is gorgeous. Very beautiful trees line the streets, many of them flowering, and lands that do not have homes on them are heavily treed. Very idyllic. (The town of Webster is on the outskirts of the much larger City of Rochester, NY.)
We continued heading West along the Lake and came upon Irondequoit Bay, which is a bay of Lake Ontario. We remembered this to be one of the areas experiencing flooding yesterday when we got the first Lakeshore Flood Warning. We drove to where the road ended at a gate – unable to cross because the bridge ahead was closed, we assume due to the flooding. We weren’t the only ones checking out the area; it appears others have the same fascination with weather events that we do, and we parked & walked taking pictures since at that time, it was only raining lightly. We walked out to near the end of a jetty, looking back at the flooded backyards and obviously the homes which must have had water on the bottom floors. The wind was picking up and it was cold & wet. Large amounts of seagulls, terns, & cormorants flew over noisily. We’d love to come back and go over that bridge to see what lies ahead.
The rain was picking up so we headed back to the RV, made a batch of egg salad, had lunch, and kicked back. The girls were quite comfy and warm; they have heated pads and for days like today, it’s purrrfect. Before we left, I’d tossed a pillow on the bed, and Princess-Pretty-Pixie had acquired it as her Princess-and-the-Pea bedding.
Gracie, Luna and Java
Princess Pixie
The campsite next to us continued to flood and we wondered if, with this heavy rain, the duo of musicians would come out to play this evening. We made shrimp scampi over pasta for two night’s dinner (with our Gulf shrimp from Louisiana) and read our books. Tomorrow we leave for a week on the St. Regis River in upstate NY.
Sure enough, he came out again and marched around the Park playing bagpipes, followed by fellow campers. They followed the campground road and you could hear the music even from further away. Our own Pied Piper. (All campgrounds should provide this service!)
The Pied Piper of Webster
The Pied Piper of Webster
Webster Park Campground, 255 Holt Rd., Webster, NY 14580, (585) 753-7274, “http://www2.monroecounty.gov/parks-webster.php”. Small campground which is part of a larger park complex. Very beautiful park, campground is rustic and heavily treed, subject to flooding. Private sites for the most part, electric only either 20/30 or 20/30/50 amp. Water & dumping are available at campground. Some of the sites are fairly close to the next site, plenty of others are more private. Most have long entrances surrounded by trees. We will definitely come back here again and we loved this entire area.