Friday, April 25, 2008

A ride around Alexandria Bay and the Thousand Islands Region

I've been tucked away in upstate New York the past three days for Educators' meetings. We do this every April ("we" meaning the principals superintendents of education from my church in New England, New York, and Bermuda). There must be thirty or more of us this time because we have with us the ministerial directors as well. We are planning a convention for all the pastors and teachers in our "Union" for next summer. It's exciting work, to be honest, even though it means sitting and dickering about details for hours at a time. We have had interesting and important conversations along the way, and that has made the time worthwhile, even though it has come during most of my Spring Break (boo hoo).

Wednesday, we stopped at one of our schools, a boarding school on our way to Alexandria Bay. There, we spent about three hours painting the cafeteria and kitchen facilities. We were quite pleased and proud of our work!

We wanted to find something to eat after getting settled in our (very nice) hotel rooms, but as we are here out of season, most everything was closed, so we ended up eating at the hotel Bistro. No big deal, really. All I wanted to do was sleep, which came easily after the long day of driving and painting.

Yesterday afternoon, we took time out to go on a river cruise of the Alexandria Bay area on the St. Lawrence River. It's called "Millionaires Way" and not without good reason. We saw summer retreats of the rich and famous. We saw abandoned castles of the rich. We even saw a pink mansion belonging to an NFL player (so painted because his daughters wanted a pink house)! And we saw one that belonged to an ancestor of mine (via my mother), a Kellogg summer home!!!

I took 230 pictures in all on the cruise, and most of them turned out. It was all but impossible to choose which pictures to share here. Basically, I am just randomly picking a few to give you the flavor of the place. It was a lovely (although a tiny bit windy) day. One we certainly enjoyed.

6 comments:

R. Aastrup said...

Thanks. On both counts =)

Ruth said...

I have done the Thousand Island Tour from Gananoque in Canada. We went around Bolt Castle but couldn't disembark because it is American soil and required customs and immigration inspection.

Ruth said...

Oops...I meant Boldt Castle

Heidi said...

Check your comcast account for my alumni update....meant to do this for your first issue...but you know how my time's been lately: busy!

Patty said...

Hi Rondi,
Great pictures. Those are some really big houses. Imagine heating them ????

Christy Woolum said...

Wow... this looks like it was a great trip.