October 4th at Letchworth State Park.
Known as the Grand Canyon of the East This beautiful state park has so much to offer for campers, hikers, cyclists and photographers. South East of Rochester near the town of Carlisle this is truly an amazing place. We camped there in a very comfortable 30 amp campsite with clean and well maintained bathrooms near by. Though the hot shower was not very hot.
The awning is conspicuously absent at this campsite....this was the week before we bought it.......  but the weather was warm and fine for the two days that we were there and the awning was not needed. Now however, I will not leave home without it, its just so much better having thepicnic table and outside cooking area covered.

Nick's Lake State Park
what a lovely place!  Our friends J&D joined us here for 3 nights over the Columbus Day weekend. Nick's Lake is a smallish lake, located just a short way outside Old Forge in the Adirondack Park. The campground is a typical NY state camp, well appointed with good sites and reasonable spacing. We were on no-power sites so relied on our on-board systems. This was the first time that we had used the furnace all night, but we found that the down comforter over our memory foam mattress was sufficient that we only needed the furnace set to low, and were very comfortable. We did find, however, that the fridge goes super efficient when run on gas. With it set at 5 on the first night it froze most of the food! eventually we had it down to 2 and it was still very cold.
Picks in Old Forge:  if you have 2 cars and kayaks or canoes, take one car to the North end of North Street and launch there while leaving the other car in the parking lot at mountain Man Sports in town. You then have a nice 3-3.5 hour paddle down the Moose river back to Old Forge. BUT, there is a portage of about 3 block or so (seemed longer :)  ) in the middle of this run that can be quite a work out. If you have kayak wheels, take them along. there are some very pretty sandbars on which you can haul out for rest stops along the way though. Nick's Lake itself is worth some paddling time too, especially at sunset.
On this trip we added a canopy to our inventory. Its just a cheap ($50) one from Walmart, but we really appreciated being able to cook under that when we got light rain, and being able to leave our chairs out and not have them wet with dew.  I also appreciate not having pine needles in my scrambled eggs! Two 7 x 9 tarps bungie corded around the sides made a very cozy wind break also.
As usual we got a lot of passers by stopping to ask about the Aliner, especially seeing there were two in a row this time.

Goldenrod Campground
For our first outing in the spring this year we had planned to go to Letchworth State Park, NY, a bit South West of Rochester. When we called they said that they had plenty of room and to " come on out". However, when we got there the inn was full, so to speak. The offered us a camping guide and map and suggested that the nearest campground to them was Goldenrod Campground. We headed over to Goldenrod, a little further on in the town of Carlisle. The sign for the camp was not encouraging, nor was their entrance. Pat was a bit unsure of towing the Aliner over a one land bridge with no railing of any sort. The drive was rough, the owner's house looked rough and we sere not at all sure if we would stay. But we followed the owner to look at some campsites. As soon as we turned the corner past the house we found an absolutely gorgeous 50 acres of well mowed paths and campsites among clumps of mature trees. Most of the sites had water and 20 amp hookups, and there were only three other campers in the park. A further bonus was (is) a totally beautiful trout stream that is well stocked and winds through the property. The bathrooms were rustic, but were functional and clean with plenty of hot water. We spent a quiet and most enjoyable night there and hope to go back again in the future. The owner and his family were helpful and friendly and the price was just $20. In the morning we awoke to the sounds of birds, not other campers or traffic, and watched a Great Blue Heron fishing along the stream bank. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable stay.

30 lb Gas tanks
How can I tell how much gas is left in them? I asked this of our local hardware store guy ...I felt a bit silly as I think that this may be common knowledge to most campers. I had tried a thermometer strip (that you can put against the tank) but that didn't work very well. The hardware guy said "Just weigh them".
A 30lb bottle should weigh right around 27 pounds  empty and 57 pounds full.
you can weigh them on a bathroom scale, but I just took my archery scale out to the camper and used that .......  perfect!  and easy!