Peg and Russ: Visiting Pam and James

Stela remembered us. She was even glad to see us. The Smiths were so good to her. She didn't gain weight. She is calmer over all. She seems so happy. Harris may be a dog whisperer. We think she still misses him.

After picking her up, we stopped for lunch at Linda and Lenny's. It was good to have a couple of hours with them before heading out of star Lake for another year. With luck, the four of us (maybe Stela too) will get together in Florida when winter sets in in Star Lake and they head south.

It was only a few hours drive to Altmar, our destination for the night. Russ' paternal grandmother is buried in Altmar and we wanted to visit the cemetery. Finding it was not too difficult and now we know that we need to find someone to clean her gravestone and those of other family members before the lichens make them unreadable. It was good to be there.

We stayed at the Tailwater Inn, which was surprisingly upscale for such a small, rural town. Our impression is that the fishing in the Salmon River drives the economy of the region and creates more prosperity than we saw in most other areas. Salmon come upstream from Lake Ontario to spawn and there are also steelhead trout.

Friday we drove to Pam and James' in Fredericksburg, VA. We dreaded the drive, on the first day of Labor Day Weekend, but the traffic was no worse than usual and we arrived before 4:00.Saturday, we walked to the Farmers Market downtown and partied with their kids and grandkids in the afternoon. It was a nice wrap up to the first week of vacation when they were all in Star Lake with us.

After a lovely evening of sitting on the porch together and a wonderful brunch Sunday morning, we headed off to visit Meg and Steve in Lexington.