Have Love Will Travel

Desiree

Friday morning bright and early, we hit the road from Toronto to Hunter, New York State. The drive down in theory should have only taken us 8 hours maximum, but after only an hour on the road we hit our first hiccup - crossing the border. Only 4 kilometers out from the border crossing at Niagara Falls the traffic was at a stand still and it took us over 3 hours to completely cross over to the other side. Madness, complete madness, it was a long weekend for both Canada and America and it seemed like every Tom, Dick and Harry were on the road.
Three hours behind schedule, we left Buffalo and continued towards the Catskills only to find that many roads had been closed due to the excessive flooding the previous weekend. Detour after detour meant delay after delay, but we were still pretty confident we would make it to our campground before the office closed at 9.30pm.
Shortly after, while traveling at 75 miles and hour (125kms) on another bloody detour our left hand side tire blew out. Thank god Jared know how to change tires as I have no idea how to and we were completely in the middle of nowhere without a payphone in sight.
To make matters worse the rental car had one of those stupid ‘space saver tires’ you know the ones that look like they belong on Barbie’s jeep and are only good for like 50 kilometers or something. What a joke, we ended up arriving just after 10.30pm 4 hours later then planned, it worked out okay in the end as we got our tent set up and crashed for the night, preparing for a big one the next day.

The next day we headed straight to Camp Loyaltown.
It was surreal seeing camp again, nothing had really changed, it was excellent seeing old friends and seeing some of the campers from last year. At the same time though I was glad I hadn’t returned, as I honestly don’t think I could have done a whole summer again.
Claire from last year had the day off from camp so we immediately bundled her in the car for a day of relaxation, civilization, boozing and fun.
After a stopping off at the closest Wal-Mart to pick up booze and get our tire fixed and a quick stop at the local mall for new outfits, we hit the road to Woodstock.
The town of Woodstock still has the hippy vibe about from back when Woodstock was still going on. A beautiful small town where the locals wear tie-dyed clothing and happy smell of hemp lingers in the air. We had lunch at a local pizzeria before heading back to Hunter for the afternoon.
It was an afternoon of relaxing on the lakefront while drinking and playing catch up on the camp gossip and the last year.
Big excitement of the afternoon was poking a friendly grass snake that decided to sit near us. Drunken Desiree plays with snake……..
Once a considerable amount of liquor had been consumed we had a fancy dinner (well as fancy as it gets in small town America, which isn’t really fancy) before heading to the local pub for drinks with more of my old camp buddies.
What a night, it was really great seeing everyone again, drank far too much and I even had a bit of an encounter with the incredibility useless Gay Unit head Kevin from last year, something I had wanted to do since starting camp.
Sunday, very hungover we said good-bye to Hunter and drove to Albany to see my cousin Lavinia and her new Husband Ben. Taking a detour along the way for a picnic lunch on the banks of the Hudson River.
They are doing really well and it was great to see and catch up with family.
We drove back to Toronto Sunday, during the middle of the night in an attempt to miss peak traffic times. This worked, the drive back was much easier and it was nice to be back in the lovely T.O.