Saturday August 9, 2025 Eighth Lake State Park Campground to Vestal NY

 

The campground had dried out since the thunderstorm yesterday before we arrived. Lots of empty sites and lots of sites being restored. This campground is ok but it needs the potholes repaired and the sites re-graded so they don’t collect water. We saw a few tents sitting in the middle of a puddle.

We did the dump station thing and cleaned out any remaining recycling and trash. We still have half a tank of water so good to go.

Today we drive to Endicott NY where we will stay in the driveway of Deb’s hiking buddies, Patrick (Goat) and Tom (Tommy Hawk) Kelley.

 We stopped at a SeaSons Diner on Rt 28 for a late breakfast. Lots of traffic in both directions since it is peak vacation season.

We next stopped at the Endicott Visitor Center which has a museum of sorts dealing with the town history. IBM and Endicott-Johnson shoe factories built this town. IBM in those early years made business machines like time clocks and typewriters. Tomas Watson was the figurehead of IBM and took them through the early growth years, although he never lived here. Sounds like he was more a finance guy who acquired companies and created what was to become IBM.

Endicott-Johnson made shoes and had huge facilities from tannery to actual shoe manufacture. E-J seemed to be the company who really cared about their workers and created a real company town. All that drifted away in the 80’s and 90’s as globalization began and now neither company has any presence in town.

We landed at Tom & Patrick's for afternoon drinks and snacks and then off to Beer Tree Brew Company for dinner and a hot air balloon ride. Beer Tree is a big place and it was hopping. We met Patrick’s new friend Christi and after dinner we headed down to the field to help setup (Deb and I watched them set up) the hot air balloon. Justin is the owner and has been ballooning since he got his first ride at the age of 13. Justin’s brother and three other friends formed the ground crew which has to chase us and then pull us down when we land, more important than we realized. Patrick, Tom and Christ also helped on the ground so I think they have done this before. The magic is Justin’s experience in “feeling” the terrain and wind shifts. There is no obvious way to steer the balloon and there are a limited number of spots to set down. We were in the air for about 45 minutes. You need a clear field with road access so the chase vehicles can get to us in time for us to drop. We went back to Beer Tree and had the traditional champagne toast after a successful flight. Thanks to Justin and crew!!

Then back to Patrick’s and our van in the nice flat driveway.