Continuing our Northward journey, we did our best to avoid any and all large Northeastern cities, knowing that the hassles and hazards far ownweighed any potential benefits of visiting them. And so we bypassed Newark and New York City and made our way into the Catskill Mountains. We didn't really have any idea whether we would be able to find any space in a campground since it was the 4th of July weekend but as luck would have it we found a little campground in Fallsburg, New York operated by Sullivan county. Being only a hundred miles from NYC this campground attracts all the ethnicity one might expect and then some. Riding a bike down the road for only a couple minutes one would hear several different languages being spoken and each camp was filled with a different type of music, most at high volume levels which always seemed to increase as the hour grew later. For all the liquor that was flowing and whatever else was being enjoyed, I must say I never once saw any violence from any of this "spirited" crowd and indeed everyone seemed to enjoy a splendid weekend as rain threated a time or two but never more than sprinkled. One morning we took the two Rottweilers out in a rowboat and rowed around the lake for a couple hours and Flora got her first lesson in rowing technique although I must say I too was a bit rusty.
The main attraction here though was the ashram down the road. For the uninitiated, an ashram is a bit like a monastery, a place for meditation and exploring the path of spirituality. This particular ashram (called the Siddha Yoga Ashram) is run by a monk (in the part of India where this originated they are called Swami's) named Swami Chidvilasananda, generally called by her followers as Gurumayi. We were in luck and Gurumayi was in the ashram while we were there and we saw her one night at the last evening program we attended. There was a sweetness about the place that is unequaled, a magical quality that exists there that makes meditation easy, and what we had originally scheduled as an afternoon visit turned into 4 days. Everything about our visits there was wonderful including the food which is unequaled anywhere I have ever been. We sampled a plethora of dishes each time we visited and washed them down with large cups of a brew known as Siddha coffee, a drink that is in my opinion unequaled by anything anywhere. And so we enjoyed the extremes, the craziness of the campground and the tranquility of the ashram. By now the dogs were getting pretty good at riding alongside my bicycle and the wound on my knee had healed from the one spill I had taken when they "mixed it up" with a potential adversary.
Looking back, these few days seem like a dream. We peddled our bikes up the highway from the campground to the ashram several times and always felt very welcome and were always happy with the variety of things we found to do there. They have a wide variety of workshops in the summer and a return trip in the coming years is on our "must do" list. Just sitting on a bench next to the waterfall was an experience to be savored.
Our visit to the Ashram, as with all good thing it seems,eventually had to end and we found ourselves headed back down from the Catskills. The mountains were steep and I found the brakes were not working too well. With a weight of about 6 tons the motorhome would make one heck of a weapon if it failed to stop when it should so I pulled over and found the brake fluid level was low. Adding fluid did not seem to help that day but the next day the brakes were back to normal - go figure. So we continued up the road, through New York state and into Connecticut. Right outside Hartford there was a big explosion and we quickly pulled over to the side of the busy interstate. Amazingly, as we pulled over, a huge wild turkey was busy eating at the side of the road. The bad news was that we had blown one of the rear tires. The good news was that we were near an exit and that the other tire in the pair of duals was still intact so we limped up to a nearby truckstop. We spent the night in a busy and noisy truckstop parked under a sign warning us that camping would get us towed away and I woke up periodically listening for sounds of a towtruck hooking us up to tow us off to some obscure impound.
The next morning we got the tire replaced and we were back on the road. We passed through portions of 4 states on this day before stopping in Portland Maine. Here, among the clouds of buzzing mosquitoes, we made plans for the continuation of our trip into Nova Scotia. There were a couple options, to continue north and drive around the Bay of Fundy, a trip of over 500 miles, or else, to take one of the ferries across and save a few days. One, a huge catamaran, (it is called "The Cat") operates out of Bar Harbor Maine and was especially attractive to me because it made the 150 miles crossing in about 3 hours. Unfortunately, when I called, I found that they could not accomodate a motorhome as tall as ours. The second option was the Scotia Prince, a 550 foot long ship which took 11 hours to make the 300 mile crossing from Portland to Yarmouth. The rates were much higher for this one but I found they had a 1/2 price discount for Wednesdays and it just happened to be Tuesday when I called so I booked us on.
