Exploring More of New York – Schodack Island State Park & Hearthstone Point Campground

Ahh.. New York state.

In our last post, I shared about our first visit to upstate New York, and how it’s defied all our preconceived notions based on the big city.

We were excited to continue checking out new locations in the state.

We decided that we really did want to attend the Escapade in Vermont after all, and were communicating with our buddies Forrest & Mary (frequent caravanning RVing friends). They had family to visit on the way to Vermont, so our travel routing started to prioritize joining up.

Which is what lead us east instead of western New York. An area we have heard great things about, and we wish we had time to do it all.

Schodack Island State Park – Schodack Landing, NY

At this point, we were desiring several days in one place.

As much as we love being in motion and checking out new places, sometimes to get work done and get out adventuring – we just need more than a couple nights.

Since my Reserve America search methods have been serving us so well, I plugged in a span of several days to see what popped up. And low and behold, Schodack Island State Park (our review), just south of Albany was available over a weekend.

I couldn’t find much information or reviews on the park however.

So I did my best to choose a site based on satellite maps and booked for 6 days.  Ahhh…. 6… glorious.. days. In one spot!

My heart was swooning.

We made the drive over, paralleling the toll road along highway 5 most of the way (beautiful drive!) and arrived having only needed to pay about $3 in tolls.

Well, it turns out there’s a reason this park doesn’t have any reviews, it just opened a couple months ago! We pulled into our HUGE pull-thru electric site and felt immediately at peace.

The park is very beautiful. An island in the middle of the Hudson River. While the campground itself doesn’t have any water views, there are a couple overlooks where you can watch ships move up and down the river.

There are several trails within the park that are well maintained, offering plenty for us to do locally.

While we were out exploring during our first evening, Sarah and Bill approached us.

They’re locals who are aiming to hit the road soon, and have been following the blog for a while in preparation. They just happened to choose that evening to come over to walk their dog – serendipity is awesome to us that way.

We invited them over for a happy hour later in the week, and had a great time getting to know each other.

Our buddies Forrest & Mary were also able to snag a spot in the campground for a few nights to join us, and we anxiously awaited their arrival! It had been over a year since we had any considerable quality time together.

What we love about hanging out with these guys is they are super active and love getting out learning about what is around them. They help keep us from being homebodies and workaholics. During our time together, we hit the trails multiple times geocaching (there’s a whole bunch of them within the park!) and shared in meals together.

We also took a day off work (gasp!) and hit the town of Albany together. Together we decided on a tour of the DE Slayer (a beautifully and lovingly restored Destroyer Escort from the WW2 era) and wandering around the capital building (which is exquisite!).

They left out a couple days in advance of us to our next rendezvous spot, and we used that time to super focus on some cellular antenna & booster testing. As one thing Schodack Island is lacking, is strong cellular signal.

All and all, we had a delightful stay – and it was marvelous to discover a new campground!

Hearthstone Point Campground – Lake George, NY

Our buddies have family in Glen Falls, which was their next destination. We were also able to snag a reservation at the campground they selected, Hearthstone Point State Park (our review) to continue our way towards Escapade.

We were excited for our first stop in the Adirondacks with this location, which we had come down through via train just back in May after our Canadian cruise.

After our expectations being so exceeded in Schodack Island, we were a bit disappointed in Hearthstone Point – even having read reviews and somehow managing to book the ‘best’ site in the campground for larger RVs.

Situated along Lake George, but on a pretty steep incline – it’s just an older campground more suited for tents and small RVs. There are a few sites that can squeeze in larger RVs, but the campground just isn’t really setup for maneuvering such vehicles around. Also being heavily wooded and no electrical hook-ups offered, it’s not ideal for solar.

Our site did have about couple hours of sun exposure a day, so we were managed to make it work with minimal generator use.

We were close to friends and we made the best of the less an ideal campground.

The trolly into town stops by once every half hour, so we all hopped on for a buck and explored Lake George. We grabbed tickets on the Minne Ha-Ha, a classic steamboat for a tour around the lake at sunset. It was absolutely beautiful, and so charming to hear the calliope play!

Forrest and Mary, having lived in Saranack Lake for many years, took us for a day trip up to that area of the Adirondacks, including a bit of exploring around Lake Placid (the site of the 1980s winter Olympics).

It was a long day of driving, but did give us a bit of an overview of the beauty of this protected land, the largest such state holding in the country.

What’s Up Next?

The Escapade just wrapped up last evening, which was wonderful and exhausting. We have one more tale to share with you on our way here however before we’ll get into the rally fun.

We’re off next for some needed re-charge time after a week of ‘being on’ (despite having no official presence at Escapade), and should be able to achieve that courtesy of friends with property not too far away who have offered to host us.

We’re looking forward to continuing to explore Vermont before deciding where to next.

We have absolutely no reservations, obligations or intentions made for the months ahead. And that’s a good feeling! We’re totally steering by serendipity.

PS. If you’re following the Verizon Unlimited Data Plan fiasco, we posted an update with all we know so far:
Verizon Update: Three Way Assault Underway on Unlimited Data Plans