Not the smoothest landing today

 August 27, 2022

Massena International CG site 129

Massena, NY

Today was travel day heading north toward the St. Lawrence and the Thousand Islands.  I think Momma has been taking lessons from Dad....buy high.   The tank was below the halfway mark and the fuel signs had been reading $5.39 so when Momma saw a nice large, easy to maneuver station advertising $5.19 she turned on the blinker and followed up by turning the wheel and guiding us to the diesel pumps.  We only had about another 30+ miles to go, but you never know what may be stalling us around the next bend.  Besides that, they had some nice grass for a potty break.  

Now you may wonder what I meant by buy high when $5.19 is obviously lower than $5.39.  Wouldn't you know as we approached Massena, we saw a $4.99 sign....oops!!  It wasn't 'rig' friendly, but we were close to our destination.....or so we thought.... so we could have gotten settled and come back with just the Ram.  

BUT. when the GPS said "You have arrived!" and there was nothing there, we knew we were in trouble.  So we eased down the road as we scrambled to look up the physical address.  We had set up the GPS by campground name, not physical address.  No problem, we'll just use the physical address.

Fortunately, everyone was paying attention to the roadway and noticed that 13'-1" sign as we were attempting to enter an updated location in our GPS. There is NO WAY we can get under that and come out on the other side unscathed.  About that time, the updated address had been entered and the GPS said 'you can't be routed from here'.  No kidding!!  Thank goodness Dad was back behind the wheel as he calmly did a 3 point turn on what was fortunately a wide area with a tad extra off road area.

I'm sure you are expecting us to arrive at the campground.  I know we certainly were.  But the physical address brought us right back to our original destination and no matter how hard we looked, there was NO campground in sight.  

So, time to phone for assistance, which also turned out to be a frustrating challenge.  First, no service on the phone.  Reboot the phone to locate current cell towers.   Ahh service. .  Voicemail.  (^(^^%*&#).  

So just for giggles and out of frustration, Momma clicked on directions on her phone on the google campground page .....and .....6 miles to your destination.  Well, that sounded promising...maybe??   And then we saw a campground sign with an arrow.  Happy Dance Time!!   Until we saw the bridge out sign.  WHAT??  but signage said the road was open for the campground...as the REAL location of the campground is on the current side of the bridge.  No crossing needed.  Whew!!  

Now, being on the road for nearly three months, there is an expectation of a warm, friendly, let me help you settle in, I'm glad you're here greeting.  Well, all I can say is the actual check-in and the expectation were polar opposites.  Maybe the clerk didn't want to work on that particular Sunday afternoon?? Or maybe he's just a jerk??  He put the paperwork on the counter and when I hesitated said, "Any questions?"  Well, yes.  What site have we been assigned?  He pointed to a pink car tag

with an illegible site number. "Could you please tell me what that say?"   The other gal in the office gave him a glare so he proceeded to tell Momma the site number and showed her the location on the map, guiding us to drive through site 114 to turn our site 129 into a drive thru site.  it all sounded fine, until we arrived at the actual site location with a picnic table right smack dab in the middle of site 114. So we had choices:  Put the Ram in flight mode and jump over the table,  drive around the loop and back into site 129, or get out and move the table.  After consideration, option 3 was selected as you can see.

  Ah..h.. home for the next 4 nights.

And once again, there are plenty of empty campsites which equates to PLAY area for ME!!

Further investigation has solved the location issue.  The correct address has a -A after County Route 42 as the campground is located on County Route 42 extension.  Mystery solved.  

I told Momma to be sure to update the address in the GPS so when they head off galavanting, they can be sure to find their way back to me.  Maybe I should make sure my dog food bowl is full to the brim....just in case....

I'm Chloe