Day 83 – New campground, new adventures. We hated to leave Webster Park but we had made reservations at Riverside Campground in Brasher Falls, NY and it was time to move on. It was still raining when we got up, and it continued most of the day. We departed at 9:15 a.m., windy, raining & 40 degrees. When doing our pre-travel check of vehicles, we discovered one of the RV headlights wasn’t working. Most of our journey was going to be on smaller roads rather than the thruway, so we figured we’d find an auto parts store on the way.
We followed along Lake Ontario for a bit thru wine country. We passed by large apple orchards and the trees were flowering. Evidence of continued flooding showed up as we travelled; some front yards & farmlands were covered with water and we passed by many swollen streams. Beautiful countryside and small, old towns. And yes, we found an Auto Zone open on a Sunday in the middle of nowhere, he was able to fix the headlight.
We arrived at Riverside Campground at 2:30 p.m., 44 degrees, rain. The girls were perfect little travelers, sleeping for most of the trip. Our trip was slowed somewhat by the rain & sleet. Yes, that’s right, sleet. The last thing we’d expected to see. We checked in & were directed to Site #124, a relatively new site with 50 amp electric, sewer, & water hook-ups. There wasn’t room for campers to park their cars on-site, so people park their tow vehicles in parking areas, near to or across from their sites. The campground was nearly full, mostly with seasonal & full-time campers. Our site had a seasonal camper parked next to it on one side so no one was home & a grassy area for sitting out by the River on the other side of it. We were positioned right by the River where it was turning in a different direction, so except for the other campers, the River views were awesome. And the sound of the RAGING River was amazing, roaring like the Atlantic Ocean did at Cape Hatteras. Obviously we wouldn’t be kayaking directly from our campsite since neither of us had a death wish, but the owner told us we could access the River from the campground further along the River where it wasn’t so rough. While Rob was parking the RV, I drove the pot-holed, dirt road to Site #29 where he said we could put the kayaks in when no one was parked there. Hmmm, not sure it’s safe there, either. We may have to drive somewhere else to put in, but we wanted to explore the St. Regis thoroughly during our week-long stay anyway.
This is a private campground & we’ve learned that you never know what to expect when booking these because what you see on the internet sites may not be what you find when you get there. Normally, along with much higher fees to pay, you should expect from private campgrounds: good customer service, full hook-ups, Wi-Fi (usually marginal), paved roads, laundry facilities, cable and/or satellite hook-ups, a propane filling station, etc., and some have been like that. Sometimes you get there and the sites are so close together that you have trouble getting your slides out, or they are full of stored trailers & RV’s, or sometimes the campers live there full-time or are seasonal campers there for the long haul, and sometimes the campground has not been well maintained. Sometimes they aren’t the paradise they claim to be in their ads. We’ve been lucky so far and have been to some that were great and just two that weren’t good. We have found the public Parks to be consistently prettier and more private, they are much cheaper and because money is not their primary concern, the sites have generally been further apart with trees in between them. They do, however, rarely offer full hook-ups & the other amenities mentioned above, AND often with the older Parks in particular, they aren’t designed for the bigger rigs above 35 feet in length. (Public parks include the National, State, & County Parks, Army Corps of Engineers & State Recreational Areas, National & State Forests, etc.) It really all depends on what the camper’s needs & preferences are.
Anyway, we unpacked & set up, nice to have full hook-ups again, internet & cell phone connections are intermittent, but the River is so loud we probably couldn’t hear during a phone conversation anyway, LOL. Seriously, we LOVE the sound of rushing water. The girls adapted quickly, we had our showers & then ate our leftover shrimp scampi. The weather forecast was for temperatures close to freezing tonight with wind chills around 28 degrees & we wondered what would happen to the flowering fruit trees.
We did a little research about the area: Brasher Falls is one of the small towns on the St. Regis River. We’d been wanting to explore the St. Regis River area for a long time, ever since Gail, my stepmother, had sent us a newspaper article about the St. Regis River Canoe Trail (thank you, Gail). This River flows into the St. Lawrence River, not far from here, and 860 square miles is its drainage. In this area the St. Lawrence River separates Canada from the United States. The River meanders through the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation, Brasher Falls State Forest & many other State Forests, and the town of St. Regis Falls where it enters upstate NY’s HUGE Adirondack Park. Below St. Regis Falls it separates into several branches & continues through the Adirondacks. The East Branch flows out of Meacham Lake; the West Branch travels west out of Adirondack Park & back into the Park again, eventually meeting back up with the middle branch of the St. Regis River as both flow out of the numerous lakes, rivers, and ponds that encompass the St. Regis Canoe Areas (the Saranac Lakes, Lake Clear, the Fish Creek Ponds, and Rollins Pond, to name a few). It’s a prime canoeing/kayaking waterway with everything from still waters to Class 5 rapids, and we’d decided this trip would be a great opportunity to explore this area, especially during the Spring when the waters were flowing at their highest. Of course, we didn’t know that we’d be going during a flood and that the waters would be raging like they were; nor did we know it would be snowing, LOL.
St. Regis River, Riverside Campground, Brasher Falls, NY
St. Regis River, Riverside Campground, Brasher Falls, NY