Officer Boyd!!!! Officer Boyd!!!

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Heading west, we followed the Lake Ontario shoreline, looking, without success, for something interesting to do on the way. In England, we seem to squeeze every opportunity out of anything scenic or unusual but here there is just so much that is scenic or unusual, they seem indifferent to a lot of it. The lake is staggering, so huge you can look in all directions and not see land (193 miles long and 53 wide). We selected Hamlin Beach State Park as our destination for the night. Unfortunately it was absolutely mobbed by people from nearby (grotty) Rochester having Memorial Day picnics on the beach with numerous people, children and mandatory ghetto blaster per group. Luckily it was one of the bigger parks and we headed off to the camping area which was relatively empty and peaceful. We parked at the camping office, as usual, and walked in to book a pitch. Now, our RV does not actually have a licence plate, front or rear. It is brand new and when we picked it up they hadn't apparently had time to get it sorted so we have a photocopy of the registration document sellotaped to the inside of the windscreen. That, combined with our UK address and lack of phone number sometimes causes problems when booking in, but most people gloss over it and make something up to keep the computer systems happy. Not here. The address was a saga, ditto the phone number and when she saw we didn't have a licence plate she started yelling 'Officer Boyd?! Officer Boyd?!?!?' at the top of her voice until a man in uniform appeared from the back office. We explained the situation to Officer Boyd, who seemed to know less about American law than we did and care less too. To this day we are unsure if he was a State Trooper, Parks Police or Parking Attendant.... He was armed, but over here they seem to give any idiot in uniform a gun. After he gave an official shrug of his shoulders we were allowed to book in and proceed to site. Ever since we have had great fun shouting 'Officer Boyd!!!' (with a NY accent) every time we see anything vaguely dodgy. We had a slightly more successful wildlife photography trip that evening and, as we left the following morning, a wily racoon watched me taking our rubbish to the dumpster and couldn't quite wait for us to leave before getting stuck in.

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