9/17/10 – Rollin’ on the River

Uncle Ernie banged on my bedroom door at around 10:00 this morning and bellowed; “John, it’s time to go.” By 10:05, my hair and teeth were brushed and I was ready to go. After a night of wind and rain, we headed east to the Frederic Remington museum under mostly sunny skies. We drove about 45 minutes and Uncle Ernie explained why he bought a Toyota Camry after 50 years of owning multiple Lincoln Town Cars and other American vehicles. Reliability and gas mileage seem to matter more to him now. The thousand Islands region of the NY border with Canada is beautiful this time of year. Last time we were here in August of 2000, the weather was hot and humid, now it’s clear and cool, which is much more to my liking. We arrived at the museum and walked through the galleries filled with Frederic Remington bronze statues and paintings of cowboys and army men defeating Indians in battles.

We headed west to see Bolt Castle. On the way we stopped for gas and I grabbed lunch at the Subway in the gas station. We drove to the ferry pier and caught a boat over to Heart Island to see Bolt Castle. George Bolt was a German immigrant who built and ran the Waldorf Astoria hotel. He had farms in the Thousand Islands to supply poultry and eggs, dairy, poultry and beef to his hotels in NYC. Bolt started construction of his castle in the late 1800’s and abandoned it when his wife died suddenly at age 42 in 1901. The state of NY took over the property and now runs it as a tourist attraction. It’s an amazing castle with 127 rooms and a huge boat house to store Bolt’s 60 ships.

When we got back to the house, I volunteered to BBQ a beer-can chicken for dinner. Unfortunately, when I rode down to the local market, I discovered they had no whole chickens, so I called an audible and BBQ’d chicken breasts marinated in lime juice, garlic and cilantro, with new red potatoes marinated in garlic and cilantro. It was a winner.

After dinner, Uncle Erie and I went out on his deck to watch the gorgeous sunset and then we came in and watched the Yankee’s pull-out an amazing win over the Oriole’s on an A-Rod homer in the 9th inning. We chatted about family and politics before he hit the rack around 10:00.