New York Traveler.net

Wordless Wednesday: Skinny

I’m doing my Wordless Wednesday today. Yes, my days are all messed up this week! It’s a weird week. And continuing with my “gasoline woes” thread that I seem to be on, I present to you my virtual piggy bank! This is what he’s looking like after I bought gas this week.

Quite the sorry-looking piggy, isn’t he? He needs a little more “food” or some serious slathering of anti wrinkle cream.

Yeeeeehaw!

Forget those nasty gas prices! Here’s a great way to get where you need to go, save loads of money on gas, and get a friendly new pet all at the same time! It’s a Cowasaki!

HT WorldWide Travel Blog, and photo courtesy of CyberSalt.

The Cowasaki featured does not use gas but produces it and comes complete with anti flatulence mask for maximum driver comfort. Just park in a field overnight to fully recharge for the next day.

It’s not exactly as techhie as, say HDMI cables, but it’ll get ya where ya need to go. LOL Probably help keep the grass mowed, too.

Get RV Ready

Someday we Mecombers are gonna “RV” across the continent, you know. We’ve got our route planned out– crossing through New York, Ohio, downward to Missouri, all the way to Texas, then swinging back northward, up through Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, and back east again. Can’t wait! But I suppose we have to buy an RV first, don’t we! lol! We will!

If you have an RV, truck, or SUV, check out Tweetys.com. They specialize in parts and accessories for heavy duty vehicles, work or play. They’re also a friendly bunch, willing to answer your questions (like, “What on earth are 5th wheel pin boxes and are they important?” That would be me asking such silly questions. Actually, I’ll let my husband handle all that complicated stuff; I’ll browse the cool RV stuff section.

Got an RV? Get RV ready– see Tweety’s for great service, great selection, and great prices. And tell them Mrs. Mecomber sent ya.

Need a Helping Hand?

A handful of bloggers I know are in the process, or will be, of moving. I am shocked how many people move from state to state. The effort this takes seems overwhelming to a homebody like me. I personally would never trust in a full-fledged moving company (too risky), but if we ever move again I doubt Mr. Mecomber and I could do it ourselves like we have always done. There’s that funny little thing called age that has gotten in the way, lol. So here’s a wonderful idea– hire a helper!

There’s a company called HireAHelper.com, and they specialize in connecting you with some helping hands and strong muscles! Moving is their specialty, and they have locations all across the United States. Take your pick from New York movers, Los Angeles movers, Chicago movers, and more.

HireAHelper.com is not limited to helping you move. Do you need landscaping or lawn help? Help cleaning or other day labor jobs? HireAHelper.com can connect you with some help. What you do is go to the website and look for helpers listed in your area. You receive an instant quote on a helper, and read that helper’s profile and experience. You can read more about the process here. HireAHelper.com acts as a “middleman” between consumer and buyer, a lot like ebay or Amazon. Your financial information is never given to the helper directly. I think it’s a great idea, especially for folks who cannot do heavy work themselves, or cannot find enough family members to help (heh).

HireAHelper.com is affiliated with the Better Business Bureau Reliability Program (always check a business’ credentials before you hire them). And if you are a strong helper looking for some work, check them out! They are always looking for hard-working individuals.

Perhaps in our changing economy we will be seeing more un-traditional jobs like this. I think it is extremely beneficial, for the worker and the receiver of services. Check out HireAHelper.com’s resource and information page for good tips, too.

Enjoy the Ride

At the dinner table this evening, I was asking the children (I have four, ranging in ages from 11 to 18) what they liked best about traveling. I was thinking of writing a blog article about how to travel with kids. But as we talked about our experiences over our baked ziti and bread and butter, it became clear that the children enjoyed our adventures during the car trip more than the distractions to make the trip bearable. In a nutshell, I guess you could say we enjoy the ride.
They had some good ideas. Of course, being older (and more articulate), they are beyond the bingo games and sing-a-longs that make younger children happy. My youngest would still love a van with a built-in DVD player, but the others offered some sage advice. I’ll share them with you, because I thought they were very open and frank with their thoughts.

1. Take the scenic route.

This ranked number one among them all. They hate taking the highways and thruways, even if it means we will arrive at our destination sooner. Why have misery all the way to your destination and then all the way back home from it, just to save time? Enjoy the ride!

As New York travelers, we have the advantage of day-long car trips and beautiful scenery. We’ve had our share of I-90 road trips, and the trip is never as much fun as the trip we had when we took local routes like Route 5 or Route 20 or Route 8 or even the out-of-the-way local roads. Improvise a little. Make stops along the way, go to a grocery store and talk with the locals, or do your homework and find some local oddity in town to see before reaching your “big” destination.

2. Interact with the passengers.

My husband and I like talk radio (well, my husband loves it). We could have it running the whole trip. But the kids hate it. This makes sense, since half the time they don’t understand what the radio host is talking about. They’re kids. Who the heck is Bill O’Reilly to them?

My children want us to interact with them. They love conversation and stories. So hubby and I try to keep the car trip lively by informing the kids of all our youthful foibles, to their great delight! I also try to research the site we are visiting, and give a short history lesson before we get there. This adds a great deal of depth and appreciation to the site we visit. It also impresses the tour guides with our great knowledge.

I believe children- for all their groanings and complaints– truly desire their parents’ input. Mine certainly do, and aren’t afraid to let us know. Traveling in the car for long distances, where else can parents find such a captive audience? We mostly discuss the Bible, history, family life, philosophy, and current events. Find out what interests your child, but also teach the child some new things. Travel is really the perfect time to bond closer together and learn more about each other. It especially helps if you have a talkative group, as do we.

3. Bring along audio books for quiet times.

When you are tired of talking (or listening), an audio book works wonders. We have the Bible on tape, and several CDs of sermons from ministers, which are wonderful for quiet thoughts on the road. I rarely play music, and I never play heavy rock music, because those are distractions that work against reflection and conversation, I believe. Travel should be more than just a means to an end. Traveling to the destination is 90% of the journey, and I want it to be filled with convivial depth, not anarchistic distractions.

So there are my kids’ ideas. Nothing against Uno or sing-a-longs or hand-held computer games, as everything has its place I suppose. But keep in mind that the journey is half the fun, and children are as happy with simple things as complicated things. I will take that a little further and say that they are happiest when they are involved with the parents, and when there is unity among the group. This makes the traveling so much more enjoyable.

Enjoy the ride. Enjoy it together!

Photo courtesy of Vintage Clip Art.

Canadarago Lake Near Cooperstown, NY

New York State is literally loaded with little streams, creeks, rivers, and lakes. It’s a wonderfully water-ful state, but sometimes we do experience flooding. I recently blogged about our visit to see the Susquehanna River right before the historic flood of June 2006 (we had another historic flood in July that year, too). And I was sifting through my photos and found a few snapshots of our visit to Canadarago Lake, just north of Cooperstown. You can read about our visit to Cooperstown, here and Fly Creek, here.

Last winter, we drove down Route 20 and Route 28 and then backtracked the same way to go home. I used to live in this area many years ago. I haven’t traveled here in a long time, though. The change from all those years ago to now was striking to me, and I can’t say it was good.

This area is a very rural area. Hillsides are always dotted with Holsteins and horses, and big red barns jut out from the hills. Some of the barns are very unique in their design– there’s even an historic stone octagonal barn in this area. The houses also are very grand, built at a time when New York State was abundantly verdant and proud of her august agricultural citizens. I love architecture and pretty houses, and have always enjoyed driving down Route 20 and 28 because of all the elegant Greek Revival and Italianate houses here.

I was in for a shock. So many houses and farms are now terribly run-down. Barns that once beamed their proud red colors are dingy and have broken windows. Many of the grand old dames from NY’s glory days are shamefully drab, and they grotesquely sag from years of disrepair. A few houses even had plywood and plastic to patch broken windows! It was a gloomy sight indeed. I knew that times have been very hard for Upstate farmers (and others) thanks to city-slicker politicians in Albany, but this was devastating. People can’t even keep up their houses anymore. For sale signs were almost as abundant as the browning cornstalks. My heart was bleeding.

I’m sorry to be so negative in my post. I was so awed at the change that it necessitates mention.

We stopped by Baker’s Beach along the lake, a favorite old place of ours long ago. I stopped just in time to take a few photographs of a snowstorm coming in across the lake. The kids were oohing and ahhing.

Can you see the storm moving in, in the photo above? The south side (to the right of the picture) was as sunny and clear as could be. The north side is filmy and foggy. The snow was coming! It was like a faucet turning on!

Geese were plentiful at the lake. Not all fly south? Or are they just waiting around for something? When I got out of the van to take the photos, all of them started honking and squeaking, and made quite a racket. They didn’t realize that my kind of “shooting” is different!

We quietly drove home. It had been a nice, quiet journey. I am still concerned for Upstate, though. I hope things get better…

Get Your Car Kit Ready

Well, out with the old and in the with new! Now that it is almost June, it is *relatively* safe to put the snow shovels and winter car kit away. (But we still never know, lol). I really don’t have a summer car kit, save for a first aid kit. As we travel further and further away from home, I’m leaning more toward having a dedicated box of gear for our summer car trips. How about you? Do you have one?

First on the list would be a no battery flashlight. My boys love these things. We’ve always wondered how they work without batteries. Here’s a video explaining how the flashlight works. And they are very durable, too. Watch this!

Wow, a flashlight that can get lost in the snow, be dropped on concrete, run over, and bashed with a hammer. Now that’s my kind of flashlight, lol!!!

Besides a hardy flashlight, consider getting a digital tire pressure gauge (we have a manual one that never seems to work correctly), a first aid kit and manual, a few canned goods with can opener, and, if you have the space, a jug of distilled water. And as always, drive safely!

People of the Standing Stone: The Skenandoah Boulder in Oneida

We’ve been by it countless times. Every time we zip by it, we grab a fleeting glimpse and wonder aloud to each other what is etched on it, what is it’s significance, and why it is there. Today I finally got to get up very close and snap a photo of the words written on the plaque!

I’m talking about the Skenandoah Boulder, on Route 5 outside of Oneida Castle village limits. There is a stone resting on the side of the road, by a very busy four corners area, with an old historical marker punctured in the lawn next to it. “Skenandoah Boulder” is all the historical marker says.

I’d finally stopped a few months ago (in December) to get a photo of it, but the snow had been too high and too slushy for me to read what the plaque says. That photo is all I could get from my quick exploit.

The stone was tantalizingly near, but I couldn’t get closer than that!

The stone (about the size of a small couch, or loveseat) has an old copper plaque affixed on it (it’s now green). The print is small– too small for any passer-by to read even one word. Stopping the car on the side of this busy road is done at one’s own risk. I’ve always either been in a hurry or haven’t felt brave enough to stop the car and get a closer look.

Now that it is spring, I could park my car more safely, meander the very busy highway, and step onto the green grass.

This is what the plaque reads:

This marks the site of the last home of SKENANDOAH Chief of the Oneidas, “The White Man’s Friend.” Here he entertained Governor DeWitt Clinton 1810, and many other distinguished guests, and here he died in 1816 aged 110. He was carried on the shoulders of his faithful Indians to his burial in the cemetery of Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, and laid to rest beside his beloved friend and faithful teacher Rev. Samuel Kirkland.

“I am an aged hemlock; the winds of an hundred winters have whistled through my branches . I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belonged have run away and left me.” Skenandoah.

Erected 1912 by Skenandoah Chapter, N.S.D.A.R. Oneida, NY

We’d visited Rev. Kirkland’s and Skenandoah’s gravesite are Hamilton College; you can see photos and my post about it here.

I had done some research on this boulder and the Oneidas a few months ago. It only made the stone more intriguing. It is fitting to have a large boulder here, as it’s related to the Haudenosaunee and the meaning of their name: Oneida, People of the Standing Stone.

Oneida legend says that the Oneida were led to these lands by following a moving stone; where it stopped, they settled. There is another ice-age linkage here because glaciers move staggering amounts of loose stone and boulders (glaciers are made up of about one-third stone and two-thirds ice) and deposit these stones as erratics. Erratics are non-native stones and boulders which can be found all over New York. Syenite is one type of erratic and is frequently found in Oneida territories. The Skenandoah Boulder is perhaps the largest syenite erratic. It is named for a very famous Oneida Chief Skenandoah… As you pass through village of Oneida Castle, on NY 5, note that this was once the site of the principal Oneida village, known as Kanonwalohale.

We know about the great Oneida Chief Skenandoah– that close friend of Samuel Kirkland (founder of Hamilton College). Under Kirkland, Skenandoah became a Christian who influenced his tribesmen to join the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

His history– and the history of that stone– and his history in relation to that stone– is absorbing. This page taken from The History of Chenango and Madison Counties, 1880, by James H. Smith tells of the little-known history of the Oneidas and the first white settlers to the region.

Thus they were known as the people of the stone set in the fork of a tree. Tradition ascribes their origin to a stone, which, says Schoolcraft, “is a large, but not enormous, boulder of syenite, of the erratic block group, and consequently geologically foreign to the location,” there being “no rocks like this till we reach the Adirondacks.” “This stone,” says the same author, “became the national altar,” and “when it was necessary to light their pipes and assemble to discuss national matters, they had only to ascend the hill through its richly wooded groves to its extreme summit,” an eminence in the town of Stockbridge, where, he says, this stone, and the first castle of the Oneidas was located.

And who is “Schoolcraft”? I could find no reference to him on the website. Is this a reference to a relation of James Schoolcraft Sherman of Utica, vice-president during the Taft administration?

Another source I found says that this largest boulder of syenite rested at Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica, New York. Does it remain there, somewhere? Or was this stone removed to the four corners at Route 5, that same stone in the photo above? (Incidentally, Forest Hill in Utica is where James Schoolcraft Sherman is buried).

Before the door of an old chief, resting upright on the ground, stood the palladium of the clan, a stone of some size, declared by Mr. Kirkland to have been an object of idolatrous worship to many of the people. It was “a cylindrical stone of more than two hundred pounds weight, and unlike any other stone in that region.” From the earliest records, the Oneidas were spoken of as the “People of the Stone.” Onia is their word for a stone, and Oniota-aug means the people of the stone. The French called them Oneséionts; with the Dutch and English they were Oneidas.

Tradition declared that wherever the tribe moved, this cylindrical stone of mystery followed them. A strong man could carry it forty or fifty rods without resting; in this way, as the missionary says, it may certainly have followed them in their wanderings. It would seem to have been an essential of this ancient stone of the Oneidas that it could be lifted by the sinews of their warriors into “the crotch of a tree.” and when placed in that position, it rendered their braves invincible. Such is the tradition given by Mr. Kirkland, who was thoroughly familiar with the language and habits of the Oneidas.

There was another stone of much greater size, in the Oneida country, about which mysterious traditions hover. It was of considerable size and weight, and lay on the summits of a commanding height, overlooking the country on the Oneida Creek, as far as the lake, which on a bright day can be seen in the distance.

At one period the principal Oneida village lay near a fine spring in a valley beneath the height. There are vague rumors connected with this boulder of syenite, shadows of the uncertain past, which claim for it the dignity of a tribal altar. Of this larger stone Mr. Kirkland makes no mention.

It was removed in 1850, from the height on which it lay, to Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica. It is said that there is no stone of the same geological character nearer than the Adirondack Mountains. Its weight has been variously stated at from one to three tons.

We’ve been to the Munnsville Museum in the Stockbridge/Munnsville area. I was researching genealogy information on my ancestor Nathan Edson (a survivor of the Battle of Lexington) and learned that he had been granted the area of Stockbridge for his war services. The Indians of that area had moved to Oneida Castle, NY, in 1784. I am surprised and mystified about all the historical connections, and now there is a personal connection. If I ever had to explain why history is such a fascinating subject, then this is why!

Photo Hunters: Candy!

Today’s Photo Hunt involves candy. It took me a long time to think of something. We don’t eat much candy and I don’t regularly visit candy stores after having six teeth removed! (I had a vicious sweet tooth as a kid).

However, last time we were out, galavanting around Barneveld, NY, up in the lower portion of the Adirondacks, we stopped at an old time-y country store. It had wooden floors and enormous wooden bins. There were hundreds of wonderful things to see and buy. The kids and I paused to drool over the Adirondack cheese (homemade!), horehound candy, and peppermint sticks, but stopped when we saw this:

It’s candied ginger. None of us had ever tasted it before. I bought a small bag and we ate a little on the way home. It’s very spicy! My youngest son said it made his mouth feel hot. The granulated sugar coating was so, so good… uh oh! I must remember my teeth!

Here’s a traveling tip for you: ginger is known to help relieve nausea and motion sickness. Pack a small bag for people in your company who are prone to car sickness (we have two in the family who feel it). Sucking on the ginger will help.

What did you do for Photo Hunters today?

New York City Car Service

Doing a little traveling to or through the Big Apple? Don’t take your car! It is murderous, trying to navigate the narrow and congested Manhattan streets (not to mention horridly expensive due to high gasoline prices). Here’s a tip: use a car service. There are various car services available, but only a few have been around for over three decades. And few have such a memorable telephone number as 212-777-7777! It’s Dial 7 New York Car & Limousine Service, and they specialize in LaGuardia airport car service. They also serve the tri-state area plus Pennsylvania to and from JFK Airport and Newark Airport, too. Dial 7 currently has over four hundred new Cadillac Luxury Sedans, Mercedes Benz and Lincoln Town Cars, plus stretch limousines and SUVs. They’ve also got minivans and larger vans for shuttle service. Prices are very reasonable! New York Magazine called them “the best ride in town”! You can make online reservations; check out their website for more details here.