Cody’s blog

Green Lakes State Park
7900 Green Lakes Road
Fayetteville, NY 13066

(315) 637-6111

June 8 – 13, 2025

Our late spring/early summer camping trip was to three parks in upstate New York, beginning with Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, New York. We arrived at around 1:30 PM on Sunday afternoon after an easy one and a half hour drive. I was in site 61, a nice level electric-only site, a few sites down from my brother and sister-in-law’s trailer. The sites were a bit close together, which caused me some annoyance, especially later on. The site to my driver’s side was occupied by a family with kids when I arrived. Their fire ring was only a few feet from my van, and they had a fire going all afternoon and evening. They left early the next morning but I could still smell the smoke in the van the next afternoon.

On my passenger side, a group arrived around 8 pm on my first night, and they were quite a bunch. Large trailer with several pickup trucks and tons of people. Most of the time, they were gone, so it was nice and quiet, but when they were all at the site, they liked to party, and the music and loud voices were bothersome. Plus, they had lots of guests with more cars parked all over the place, at the side of the road and on the grass and they took up quite a bit more than their allotted space. I put up with them for most of the trip but ended up moving sites for my last night in the park because they were partying all afternoon and evening and I couldn’t stand them any longer.

Monday (June 9), our first full day at the park, we drove around and did some sightseeing (after a stop at a CVS, where I picked up some diphenhydramine cream for a bug bite on the back of my neck that was itching like mad). We visited another state park, The Old Erie Canal State Historic Park.

The park itself consisted of a parking lot, and some paved walkways with benches, and a 35-mile long paved hiking trail bordering the Old Erie Canal.

If I were still able to run, I’d have loved to go for a run on this trail.

Next, we drove around one of the Green Lakes beaches, briefly visited the golf course and checked out the restaurant there, then drove around the rest of the campground to see what the other loops were like. We went back to the restaurant, Yards Grille, for dinner that evening. We shared a Burrata Caprese appetizer, then I had Mahi Mahi Tacos (delicious, but not a lot of food, just three small tacos with no rice or beans like you would get in a Mexican restaurant). Jill and I shared a chocolate “cake” that was more of a mousse with raspberry sauce. Also delicious.

That night at 8 PM my time was BTS RM and V’s military discharge. I bought data for my Winegard so I’d be able to watch it, and Jimin and Jungkook’s discharge the next night. It was a full slate of BTS activities to try to keep up with, from military discharges and Festa celebrations, to J-Hope’s encore concerts in Seoul. I wasn’t sure what kind of cell service I’d have at the parks—and we were moving campgrounds on the 13th—so I just had to hope I’d be able to stream all the events. Fortunately, I managed to watch everything I wanted to see.

Tuesday (June 10) was a day for visiting waterfalls, starting with Chittenango Falls, at the nearby Chittenango Falls State Park.

A trail at the top led to the Falls Overlook and shelter area, where we stopped first to see the falls from the top.

A trail led from the overlook down a trail that passed under a bridge over the river leading to the top of the falls. Jill and I crossed the bridge to the other side, where another trail followed the other side of the river. Jill continued on that trail, while I went back and sat with my brother for a while. (We waved at Jill across the river.)

I found a trail on the lower end of the overlook leading down to the bottom of the falls. It was fairly steep, some stone and wood steps, some packed dirt, with fenced railings at some points and none at others. The rocks and wood were wet and slippery, so I made my way with care, holding the railings where there were any and staying close to the uphill side where there weren’t. I was feeling strong enough but unsure of my balance, so clung tight to any handholds available and took it slow. Near the bottom, a couple of guys were coming down the trail behind me, and one of them came and took my arm for the final stretch. That was kind of him!

At the bottom, a small foot bridge over the river afforded an awesome view of the entire falls.

We stopped at a turnout to check out a few small waterfalls.

Then we stopped in the Village of Chittenango, birthplace of L. Frank Baum, and walked the “Yellow Brick Road” (it was actually more of a light yellowish tan) through the town square.

Next, it was off to Oxbow Falls Park. There were three more falls there, we eventually deduced from the faded sign at the entrance, but we only ventured in far enough to see the top of one.

We’d brought our lunch with us, planning to stop at the beach if the weather was nice, but it was starting to rain, so we just ate in the van in the parking lot at Oxbow Falls.

Back at the campsite, I watched a livestream of BTS Jin and J-Hope introducing various Festa activities, and in the evening, Jimin and Jungkook’s military discharge. Six out of seven were finished with their service! Only Suga remained, he still had ten days of his alternate service to go.

Wednesday (June 11), the weather was sunny and warm so we packed lunches again and went off the beach! Beautiful clear blue water and brown sandy dirt beaches. There was no swimming on our side of the beach, but the other side and the end had swimming areas.

We were visited by three ducks as we ate our lunch, two mallards and one white. They spent some time foraging in the grass in front of us. After we ate, we set out to walk the trails that circled the lake.

It was a lovely day for a walk around the lake. The water was so clear and an amazing deep blue, and the trees along the path were tall and beautiful. The trail goes all the way around the lake, but we didn’t go that far, just walked for a while and then turned back.

Around 2 PM, we headed back to camp, where we spent a quiet afternoon. I took the van to the dump station, refilled my water tank and dumped tanks, and emptied my trash, so I was set for the rest of the stay.

Thursday (June 12), Jill and I went to see Round Lake, the smaller of Green Lakes State Park’s two lakes. This one was a little harder to get to, and John decided not to come. We drove down to the camp store and parked in their lot, and headed down the trail from the parking lot. Similar to Green Lake, Round Lake featured a lovely hiking trail that circumnavigated the lake, which also had beautiful deep blue pools of water, and tall, elegant trees lining the paths.

We followed the trail in one direction, then went back to our starting point and walked for a while in the other direction. We didn’t want to go all the way around, but when we checked Jill’s tracker, it looked like we’d gone over halfway in each direction, and it probably would have been shorter to just go all the way around instead of doubling back. Oh well! It was a lovely walk, almost two miles all together, which would have been nothing for me in the old days before I broke my hip. But it was a lot better than I’d been doing right after all my hip surgeries.

That evening, I went to hang out with John and Jill at their trailer, trying to escape the annoying neighbors in the next site. We only had one more night in that campground, but I didn’t want to lie awake all night or be wakened at 5 am by music blasting, as had happened once before, so I called the office and asked if I could switch sites for the night. Luckily, the site right across from John & Jill was available, and all I had to do was go down to the office and get a new parking pass. So I hustled back to my site, packed up and drove down to the office, then back to park in my new site. Ahhh! So peaceful and quiet! It was not as level as my other site, but I was happy to trade a bit of a slope for a quiet site with a lot more space around it. I had one neighbor up the road with plenty of trees between us, the central playground in front, and my brother and sister-in-law right across the road. So I had a good night’s sleep for my last night at Green Lakes.

Next morning we packed up and headed out to the next campground. I slept until 7 am and missed the livestream of J-Hope’s Hope on the Stage Encore concert, but was hoping to catch the replay on the 20th. I’d bought a two-day pass for both Encore concerts, not knowing which I’d be able to watch, but with the livestreams and delayed viewings I figured I’d have the best chance of catching at least one.

Geezers on the Go Green Lakes State Park