1000 Island Two Nations Tour

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014
1000 Islands Campground
Alexandria Bay, NY

"Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."  John Lennon

Our plan today was to get up, have coffee and breakfast, leaving by 9:00 to catch the only boat to Singer Castle at 10:00, stopping at Boldt Castle at the end of the 3.5 hour tour.  Got up to find it's pouring rain and started the coffee. When we heard the coffee finish brewing, we noticed nothing in the pot and coffee running all over the counter and onto the floor.  What the heck???  Somehow the  coffee pot developed a small hole in the bottom.  Grabbed the rag towels and cleaned up the mess, ate breakfast, it's still raining and now it's 9:30.  Time to change plans.  We check the boat schedules and decided to do the Two Nations Tour going out at 12:30.  We always pack 10 one gallon jugs of RO filtered water for drinking and cooking and we are now down to our last gallon so we need to find water to fill the jugs.  In the south, water refill stations are everywhere but not so easy to find in this northeast country.  We have been finding water at Walmart but the one in the last city we were in did not have a water filling machine.  We decided to look for a new coffee maker, pick up the mail and water before we go to the boat dock.  We stopped at the local market and found a very helpful customer service person that told us where we could get artesian water and a coffee maker.  The water was in a little shed out on a country road and cost $.50 a gallon so we filled up some of our jugs before we ran out of change for the machine.  Next stop was the Drug Store that had a 4 cup coffee maker for $18, perfect!  We pick up the mail and arrived at the boat docks by 11:00, bought our tickets for the 12:30 cruise and went in search of some coffee.  We found Green Mountain Coffee in one of the shops.  We are scoring a perfect game so far and sun has finally come out!  

The Two Nations Tour takes you among the islands on the American and Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River where we got to see small islands with tiny houses... 

and big islands with BIG houses, complete with boat garages.

  There are actually 1,852 Islands in the St. Lawrence Waterway.

Millionaire Row has some pretty fancy houses...

including Nobby Island.

Rockport, Ontario, Canada church.

Canadian island retreat

Another tiny house on a tiny island

The 1000 Island International bridge to Canada

Canadian luxury summer home..

Some even made their own island to put a house on.  We learned that they have holding tanks for their sewage that is picked up by a Honey Boat.  Each Island house must produce their own electricity and water.  Fire protection is via Volunteer Fire Dept. that usually doesn't make it before the building is totally destroyed, so you need your own fire protection.

Going under the International Bridge

The boat has a paddle wheel for show but uses engines to power the boat.

This is a tower on Hill Island that takes you up 400' for a 360 degree view the waterway.  You have to enter Canada to go there.

This is Boldt Castle, which we will visit tomorrow.  Another Blog on this coming soon...

What better end to a perfect day than a stop at 1000 Island Winery.  We enjoyed tasting 10 different wines and came home with 4 bottles of their Saint Lawrence Red, 2 bottles of Riesling and 2 glasses.

More rain is predicted for tomorrow so no plan.  We will see how the day goes.

Becky and Lonnie