Our travels this week bring us to the Thousand Islands region of NY. For those not familiar with the area, there are 1,864 islands in the St. Lawrence River, straddling the US/Canada border. And yes, it’s believed that the salad dressing is named for the area! We are camping at Wellesley Island State Park – the largest campground in the area, and one of the largest islands in the 1,864! It’s a beautiful area – we’ve visited a few times over the years – and there’s a ton of history here, with many battles of the War of 1812 fought in the area.
On our way to Wellesley Island, we made a stop in my old stomping grounds, Oswego NY, where I earned my Bachelor’s degree back in 1991. We parked near the lake (the entire campus borders Lake Ontario) and I enjoyed a two-mile walk around campus – started out near the dorms I lived in, and I was so very aware of how ugly the buildings are – 1970s concrete! When I compare them to the dorms Connor lived in at Miami University, it’s a pretty dramatic difference (after all, Robert Frost called Miami “the most beautiful campus that ever there was”). The lakeside location is really what makes Oswego beautiful!
Quite the comparison between the dorms at two state (public) schools…
It was fun to walk through the quad and see some of the academic buildings where I spent so many hours. It was especially fun to do this while walking normally; during my senior year, I was an admissions representative and clocked a lot of miles giving campus tours while walking backwards (and somehow managed to never run into anything!)
From there, we headed east and then north to the campground – about 3 hours total from home. Mark and I actually camped here once before, in 1994, in Mark’s pop-up tent trailer. That was my first time ever camping, and honestly, I didn’t enjoy it. But, glamping in a motorhome is very different. We’re in what appears to be a newer section of the campground, with full hookups…but unfortunately, not many trees so not much shade. Fortunately, the weather forecast this week is absolutely perfect and it likely won’t be an issue. And, after last week’s mud and mosquitoes, this will be a nice change! We do have some nice open space behind our campsite so it’s reasonably private.
After we got RoVer leveled and connected, we headed out on our bikes to explore the park. It’s a huge park, and we are SO glad we have the e-bikes, since we did not bring a car this time. We ended up at the marina and walked out along the shore. We are REALLY close to Canada, as evidenced by the text message I received from Verizon…
To give you a sense of just how close we are to the border…the blue dot is our campsite. The pink line is the international border in the St. Lawrence River…
The views are amazing, out to the St. Lawrence River and the many islands.
We enjoyed a nice Solo Stove campfire and some live entertainment – the guy at the next campsite over was attempting to ‘assemble’ his origami kayak and it was pretty entertaining to watch. I hope he wasn’t planning to kayak anytime soon because it was taking FOREVER! Seems like an inflatable kayak is a better option – not quite so challenging to put together!
It was such a clear sky, we were hoping to see some stars after dark (we’ve been carrying a telescope with us all this time, but haven’t yet used it). Mark headed outside around 9:30pm, only to be blinded by bright blue LED lights on one of the neighboring trailers. Ugh. Kills any hope of seeing stars on this trip…too much ‘light pollution’!
We may have figured out a solution to one of our ongoing challenges – low water pressure and temperature fluctuations in the shower. Wednesday morning, we turned on the water pump. We usually only use that when we’re using water from our freshwater tank and do not have a water connection…but it seems that using that in conjunction with the water connection provides the best water pressure and no surprises in water temperature. At least it did this time…we’ll see if it’s consistent and an actual solution!
Wi-Fi has been a little challenging at this campground. Signal strength is not great for either Verizon (our cell phones) or T-Mobile (the hotspot/jetpack I borrowed from our local library). Our phones get a good signal elsewhere in the state park, but not in the campground area apparently. And I think T-Mobile thinks we are in Canada. So, streaming has been a bit more challenging and we have to be patient to get things to finish buffering. The other state parks we’ve stayed at have had pretty good cell signals, so this is unusual!
Wednesday morning, we hopped on our bikes and made the 2.5 mile trek to the park’s nature center where we headed out for a 2.3 mile hike along Eel Bay. The scenery was incredible, with views of the St. Lawrence River and a few of the islands. Parts of the trail were nicely ‘groomed’, like you would expect at a nature center, while other sections were very rocky and full of tree roots…definitely had to watch our steps. It was mostly flat, but there were some hilly sections that got our hearts pumping!
There are two “glacial potholes” along the trail – the potholes form from a circular current of water carrying pebbles and sediment that wears away the rock’s surface. The one on the right is 15 feet deep!
There’s a nice little butterfly garden at the nature center, so I couldn’t resist taking some photos of the flowers and butterflies and bees.
Miniature-sized butterfly….or massive black-eyed susan?! 
Korean Mint 
Beautiful colors!
After our hike, we stopped to rest behind the nature center building – in hindsight, we probably should have just sat here for an hour instead of all that hiking! Just kidding – but it was a really nice view!
We made it back to our campground with minimal battery power left on our bikes – perfect timing to get them plugged in and charging while we ate lunch!
After lunch, we were back on our bikes to do more exploring. We rode through some of the other camping areas – lots of waterfront sites, but most are very rustic with no hookups or just electric. Definitely a fantastic state park for anyone who camps and boats! Took a few more photos…as I always do…
Beautiful coastline 
George and Jane are waiting patiently for us 
A perfectly posed bird
We made our way to the beach and marina area, and discovered that they have soft-serve ice cream. Sounds good to me! But, now that we’ve had ice cream, are we still allowed to have s’mores tonight? Mark is checking the camping rules book!
August 4, 2021, 6:21 pm
It all sounds and looks so wonderful!! I’m so happy for you!