Riding the Adirondacks



There were two warning signs about this campground I regretfully ignored. One, it’s listed as an “RV Park” and two, the woman on the phone mentioned they had Karaoke on Saturday nights. That should have been enough for me to hang up immediately but the location was too perfect and so I made a reservation. Now nothing against the RV, I have a camper at home myself. But, I'm with a tent and on a quest for quiet this weekend but this place didn't offer too much of that.

As I pulled into the Ausable Pines RV Park I noticed a small office on the left. As I walked into the tiny office, a woman was sitting in front of me smoking a cigarette. The woman was nice as she went over the campground map. She knew I was looking to be alone so she gave me as remote a site as she could. I stepped outside to get my bearings and find the women’s husband looking over my bike with a friend of his. His friend just arrived by car for a visit and pulled a Coors Lite out of his trunk. We talked bikes for awhile and went over the “so where are you from” part, etc. and then the guy pulls a bottle of Jack Daniels out of his trunk and starts sucking it down. He hands it to the owner to take his share as well. I figured this is a good time to throw the helmet on and find my camp spot. I hope that guy isn’t driving home later on. I asked for privacy and that’s what I got. Unfortunately only crossing the border to Canada was going to get me far enough away from that Karaoke. Nothing against Karaoke, it’s just when I camp I want it quiet enough to hear a frog fart and this isn’t going to do.






Setting up camp was easier this time around since now I had experience getting the tent set up from the night before. The mosquitoes were terrible and so I kept both sweat shirts on and broke out the whiskey. Shortly thereafter I broke a small sweat and the bug problem was gone. Now I know some of you are thinking this doesn’t really work and I’m simply drinking enough to no longer feel the bugs biting. But I have the lack of bug bites to prove this! Now if I could only find something to drink to make loud campers leave! I now have the loud family a few sites away through the trees. Camping isn’t supposed to be done loudly!

Now I have food cooking and even a camp fire roaring though the fire didn’t last as long as I would have liked.

Bad pic, but it’s all I have




The Karaoke is going to drive me mad and so I went to the bike to get my radio and headphones. First I tried 880AM again as I had no idea if the Yankees had a day or night game. It didn’t matter since this camp site was obviously within walking distance of a local AM station. Every station I tried was the same AAA baseball game and so it was off to FM land. I came across a DJ by the name of Mike Harvey on 96.7. This guy was playing music mostly from the ‘70s and so I turned up the volume until the struggling Karaoke singers were no longer heard.

The first song that came on was “Make Me Smile” by Chicago followed by “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede, and “Surfin’ Safari by the Beach Boys.

At this point the trip couldn’t get much better, the food, the fire, the music, the bugs packing their bags to get away from my stench…then the sports news came on and the Yankees had won another one in a day game. There’s another one for grandpa!

After a trip down memory lane it was time to get back to reality and clean up from dinner. While walking down toward the sinks the moon was once again present and nearby was big old Jupiter just hanging there waiting for me to grab my telescope. Unfortunately I didn’t pack the scope and so just stopping and staring at the night sky was going to have to do. The Karaoke croaked on and it was nearing 11pm. I thought “this was going on at 7pm when I pulled in, does this ever stop?” As I was settling in for the night I began thinking how this was all just about over. All that remained was an uneventful return trip tomorrow but “uneventful” wasn’t the right word.


Click Here To Keep Riding