Verona Beach State Park & Erie Canal State Park

While it was a less than stellar departure we did manage to get the wheels rolling by 8:30 for a six plus hour of driving, it always takes so long to get out of VT. With detours and a few quick stops we arrived at Verona Beach State Park by 3pm. Verona Beach State Park is less then 10 miles north of I-90 (exit 34) on the eastern shores of Lake Oneida, the park opened in 1947 with campsites being added in 1970 and more in 1995. There are 45 sites but only 12 have electric, the sites along the shoreline have no services but will fit smaller rigs, we opted for site 17 with electric, we can see the lake from our site. Our site happens to have no tree cover, not a bad thing when acorns are falling all day and night.

After a long drive we enjoyed a walk along the lake while the sun was setting, a great way to finish the day.

One of the reasons we chose Verona Beach aside from it being at the max we like to drive in a day, there is also the Erie Canal State Park nearby with a biking path on the old towpath. Four miles away is a parking area, we arrived at the towpath 10'sh and decided to head north. For much of the first part  NY 46 was running parallel to the Erie Canalway Trail, while not busy there was somecar noise.

 This part of the towpath runs through farm country, the trail in this area had an old smaller unused canal that didn't have much water, what water was there was green and very stagnant (skeeter breeder area) and at some points there was no water just some nasty looking muck.

Erie Canal

                                                                                                                                                             

Erie Canal below lock

After a while the bike path took us over to the Erie Canal at Lock 21, we continued on and eventually the trail separated from the canal and we rode along what appeared to be an old rail bed.

At Stark's Landing, a hamlet of Verona, we see this mural is on the Verona town garage facing the towpath. The mural was done by local artist Jane Grace Taylor, there are three scenes depicting life along the canal in the mid 1800's in three nearby hamlets. You can read more about the mural and artist here.




We didn't quite make it to Rome NY but by the time we turned around we had ridden over 8 miles, we then rode the 8+ miles back albeit a little slower. We had a great time just being out again, love the retired part of semi-retired.

Our wonderful fall day was topped off by another beautiful sunset across Lake Oneida.

Until next time...