Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Monza Navigates Lake Ontario..

Well....
Here we are back home after a successful and quite enjoyable drive,
Completely circling Lake Ontario.



Half of the drive in Canada, and the other half in NY state. The monza handled high rpm cruising for hours on end... and a hour+ long border wait heading back into the US, with stride. Ran excellent, never got too hot, and seems to be running even better than when I left. 

Video:

About 40 GB of Video was taken during the trip. 
As you may know from the other blogs, I have a GoPro Hero 3 action camera that I can mount on/in the 
car. 

As usual.... 'Hindsight is 20/20'.  Now that I know where the picturesque parts of the journey are I could have had the camera set-up and aimed properly. 
This would have created a concise and entertaining video.. + one that didn't need so much editing, with software and PC power I don't currently have. 

The video I have consists mostly of following slow moving large vehicles that I would eventually catch up with...  and all of them are tainted by a pointless and rambling commentary and my moments of  "saltyness" towards another vehicle or driver. 

I could add music but thats mostly copyrighted material.
So thats where the video content stands to date.
I might get around to editing it someday!
So until then, here's this somewhat less entertaining blog entry about the trip.


The Trip: 

Here's is the Starting Point.  A Sunoco Station in Hamlin NY.
 After a morning fill-up of 93 ultra, and some iced tea and snacks for the ride... We set off.
1st. Destination: 
A cozy diner for brunch, and a stop for gas, in Oswego, NY. About a 2+ hour drive.
For the last year or two, the Monza hasn't driven over 20 to 30 miles on any trip.


I tried find a diner on Google the night before the trip, but I couldn't..
There were some potential candidates so I left it up to chance.

The first leg went without a hitch.  I recorded it from inside. The same angle as the picture above.
But without the ability to edit it, it's really pretty boring.
Aside from one quick bathroom break / snack stop.. It was non-stop thru Oswego.

Just before Oswego, off to the side of the road was a tiny little diner, right in the middle of nowhere.. 

I jumped on the brakes and pulled on in.  I walked inside and was looking forward to ordering, but I knew to ask first..."do you take credit?"   
Should have known...nope. 
Kicked myself for not getting cash before I left town!
An ATM was back toward town a mile or 2. 
I said the heck with it and drove on. 

Once the highway turned into city limit's of Oswego... I tried to look for a convenient atm and  late breakfast stop, but it was no use..

Then I remembered..   Oswego has a Walmart..! 

Parking the Monza in a walmart parking lot !?!?!? 

The saving grace here is that Oswego is a smaller city, and the walmart would have plenty of 'safe' parking away from the store. And it wasn't a busy time either.

Another blessing was there was an Autozone nearby.  Good for a needed quart of oil, with a helpful plastic funnel loaned out.

The stop at the 'mart.. worked well on quite a few levels.   No it wasn't the delicious diner breakfast I had been dreaming about.  But I did manage to find some healthy light snacks in the grocery dept.
I also scored the chips and dip I wanted to bring to the party.
Then at check-out I realized I could even get some cash back , eliminating the need for a pricey ATM fee and another stop.
So I was surprisingly happy for a change with one of these big box places.

I left there, and set the GoPro up to grab vid for the next leg of the journey, Oswego to Watertown, NY.
For a last fuel stop in the US. 

Luckily, nothing eventful happened, since I didn't realize I'd left the lens cap on!!!!
So no vid was captured through my Crossing into Canada.

And that's a shame because there's this Huge bridge to cross at Alexandria Bay.
And it's very senic at the thousand islands.

More to come!!!!!...