Wind Turbines

Friday Aug 6, 2010

Dick and I got up early while Dave slept in til at least 6:30 (Can't fault him his much needed beauty sleep). Coffee with Hannah and Deb and then I packed my bike, Hannah snapped a couple pics of us on the bikes, and off we went down the brook-bed driveway.

Dick wanted me to correct something I said yesterday in the Blog. He did not wrestle his 600 pound motorcycle up my driveway last night, but rather he wrestled his 800 pound motorcycle up my driveway last night.

We stopped at Papa Nicks about 8 miles up the road for a light breakfast, and then stopped by one of my company's latest solar tracker projects to show my bro's what it is I have been working on the last year or 2.

We bypassed the Burlington mess and took the interstate up to the Champlain Islands exit and rode up through Sand Bar, South Hero, Grand isle, etc, etc. I thought Dicks big 1800 needed at least a little highway time to clean it it out since we were going to spend the rest of the day on little roads.

It was a beautiful morning and cooling off compared to yesterday and the weather man said to expect gorgeous weather all weekend.......

So of course when we hit the bridge to Rousse's Point, dark clouds gathered and it started to pour. We stopped and put on rain gear and crossed the bridge with rain hitting us from the side as the wind roared down from the north. Fortunately, it thinned out after 30 minutes or so and we made our way west toward Malone, New York. We were looking for wind turbines and as we got further west, I got a glimpse to the south of them far off. As we pulled into Altona they loomed in the distance ahead of us, slowly, majestically turning, (or ugly industrial blight, depending on your viewpoint).

These turbines are 1.5 megawatt (maybe a bit bigger, Blittersdorf would know down to the watt) General Electric turbines. They are white and beautiful. It is like being in a sci-fi movie when you start driving in amongst them. We pulled up a side road and then down a side-side road and parked the bikes directly underneath one. The wind was cooking along from the north so these things were cranking. I had been here before on a light wind day and could barely hear them, but I could hear the gearbox today, not too loud, but I could here it standing underneath. A Noble Energy truck spotted us and sort of politely told us to leave (one side road too many). So back on the road west to Malone. The winds were pounding us here and there from the north and it got fairly cold. We had lunch in Malone and then headed south on Rt 30 toward the Adirondack Park.

When we got near Tupper Lake we turned on Dave's "MotelVision" and started scanning. He got a couple false positives when we found the motels in questions were out of business, but they sure did look deserving of the "5 roach" rank . We sensed trouble when we saw the familiar "Vacancy" signs with a "No" in front of them. Many were more polite and just said "Sorry". Tourist season is in full swing and things are packed here. Not good. In cases like this, there are usually only 2 kinds of rooms left. The really expensive ones and the really hideous ones, also called "Dave's Picks".

We saw a vacancy sign east of Inlet and dove into the driveway, ran inside and discovered another woman was grabbing the last room ("I was here first"). I asked if they knew of any others and the woman that just scored the room smiled and said she had just passed on 2 rooms 4 miles down the road because they were attached to a rowdy bar, and they were not very clean. Dave gave his grin of approval and off we went, 4 miles west to the Eagle's Nest, and scored the last room he had left. And a lovely room it is. That scent of Lemon Pledge mixed with Roach Spray, all too familiar from the trip down south. The rusty shower stall, 6 ft ceiling and a new touch, a bed that falls off it's base when you sit on it. There is no place like home.

We unloaded, made a reservation at a nice restaurant (that as it turned out did not need a reservation, but was actually very nice), and had a good meal.

Back to the "Nest" and a Red Sox vs Yankees game on the TV to end the day.