We spent the day exploring the Finger Lakes and some of the hikes were exceptional.

We started with the Taughannock falls which was a flat walk to the 215 foot falls.

Next we visited the Buttermilk Falls which was as delicious as it sounded. The walk was up a steep rocky path following the buttermilk creek which cascaded over rocks on the way down. It was such a picturesque walk and not too many people considering it was a Saturday.

Our next stop was the Robert h Treman state park which we made a mistake at. There was the choice of a 1.8 km walk, or a 7.7 km walk. We accidentally started on the longer walk which took us a a steep, never ending hill. It was supposedly a gorge trail but it was all in a wooded area.

We had walked for about 45 mins before we decided we’d had enough forest walking over the last few weeks so we turned around. We had to drive to another carpark to find the other walk, and we were glad we did.

It was a magnificent gorge trail with towering cliffs next to waterfalls. It was so much more beautiful than Watkins Glen and only a fraction of the people. We wondered why nobody had recommended this walk. We almost didn’t do it as we’d never heard of it.

There was one more glen we were going to do, but we were so tired we decided to go back to camp. Mike decided to go on a trail at the camp wearing his jandals. I told him he was silly and should put on his trainers and long socks as the path was overgrown.

We headed back to camp and did a tick check, and sure enough, Mike had a small tick the size of a poppy seed. I tried to remove it with tweezers but the head remained. This is apparently the worst thing that can happen.

We went to the camp office to see if they knew what to do. She looked at it and confirmed the head was stuck in his skin. She said we needed to go to the medical centre, which was luckily open until 7pm.

The one good thing about not having a public health system, is there was no queue on a Saturday afternoon. We got in straight away, the nurse did her bits, taking blood pressure etc. Then the doctor came in to look at Mike’s leg.

Then it got a bit embarrassing. There was no evidence of a tick head. We couldn’t even remember where it but him. But all we can think of, was it fell out. The doctor said they don’t tend to do anything anyway, as it can cause bigger problems.

But, she was very nice and gave us a special tool for removing ticks and sent us on our way.

We’d heard how emergency care can cost 1000s of dollars just for a consultation, but they didn’t take any money from us. I think they took pity on us. Either that or we’ll get a whopping bill from our travel insurance.

Tomorrow we are going to New York City and are staying in a RV park in Jersey City, just a short ferry ride from Manhattan. I think we’re going to explore the city on our bikes.