Day 185, Friday Oct. 5, 2018, From Lake Champlain, along the St.Lawrence River, to Lake Ontario.

That's some very powerful waterways in one day.  It all began with  a Ferry ride from S.Hero (Grand Island VT) across the Lake Champlain to the New York state side at Plattsburgh.  The ferry ride had us against the bulkhead and behind a Fed Ex truck so we could not even get out to take a photo so this one will have to do of the loading.

Through the windshield does  not take the best photo. The Ferry loading.

Homes on the New York side from the Ferry (Lake Champlain)

The plan was to follow the routes as close to the St Lawrence River as possible so we could see the activities and scenery along the way. We did that and at one point missed a route that would have taken us inland, so it worked out  that we saw MORE of the St. Lawrence River than planned.  We did see the St. Lawrence and at this point it is not as wide as it is when we were up in Quebec near Riviere du Loup.

Even though it seems strange, The St Lawrence River has bays that jut into the land. Here is one.

Taking photos at 55 mph it is hard to know where the "openings" are. Here Ruth did get a good pic of the River  between some homes.

 As we moved inland, the colors and small farms between the towns and "corners" were constant.  They pump your gas for you in NY state and I had not experienced that since Oregon which does the same.  There were some colors and the roads were excellent.

Some color on Hwy 11 Northern  New York

From the speeding truck.

And a true red here.

And again , the width of the St. Lawrence River is shown easily.

We did see some birds today and the total was 17,  ALL from the truck while it was moving.  We are getting better at that and at times we cannot tell  the ID so we just cross it off the list. Significant ones seen on the road (at 55 mph) were: Two KESTRELS, RED TAILED HAWK, RED WING BLACKBIRD -5,(long time no see) , RUSTY BLACKBIRD,  (new species) and  many of the same ones we have been seeing.

We did splurge and stopped for lunch at a Burger King on the edge of Massena. Massena is an old town on the St. Lawrence but not founded until 1805. (Some towns on Lake Erie were founded well  before that.) It was originally a farmers community with cheese and butter the main products, and as they needed blacksmiths, woodworkers and haberdasheries, all came along soon after. A power plant was built early on the Grass River and still provides power for the town.  ALCOA aluminum plant is the OLDEST OPERATING  Aluminum plant in the world.  It hired some 800 workers until the auto industry crashed in 2000's and has employed half of that since then. Its present population is 17,000. That is the exact size of Colchester VT.

One of the unique features of Hwy 11 are the long stone fences .This one was about 1 mile long .

Some high spots have wind generators on the down slopes of the Adirondacks which we "skirted".

 Electric Grid Mix in New York
Natural Gas: 37.77%
Nuclear: 32.97%
Hydro: 22.40%
Wind: 3.08%
Biomass: 1.78%
Other Fossil: 0.71%
Coal: 0.60%
Oil: 0.51%
Solar: 0.17%

So you can see that NY state has a very good start on green energy. Check some other states to see the differences. California and Arizona (sunny states) are interesting to see the solar that is used. ( I had some stats on the blog from SW AZ. Late May?)

Good roads in "Upstate" New York.

Early in the day on Hwy 11 westbound. (The shadows tell)

Just before I put my chip back into my camera, this showed up out the window. It was an ordinary sunset, but it changed in a hurry.