Upstate means an awful lot of different things to different people. What does it mean to *you*?

I am not super clear myself on what I mean by Upstate New York. In Sept. I am traveling through Burlington Vt to Plattsburgh NY and then up to Montreal, coming back down into the USA at Alexandria Bay, NY. I have not traveled much in New York, so I am trying to figure out the best way to drive back across New York to get back to the Boston area, planning to take 2 days to make it back from Alexandria Bay. Several years ago, I took a road trip across Vermont influenced by the Ruah Donnelly book about specialty nurseries' (carefully researching online to make sure they were still in existence). I briefly considered driving down to Ithaca and coming back from there, but decided that the Finger Lakes area should be a separate trip. I may drive to Lake Saranac and then down through Albany. A chance to stop at either interesting specialty nurseries or even good garden centers might divert my course.

So you are going to the North Country. I'm about an hour south of Albany, so I don't have any first hand recommendations. 15 years ago, I thought Gardener's Supply in Burlington was worth a 10 minute detour. My DH used to run the Burlington Marathon, so we were there fairly often. Since bringing plants through Canada would be problematic, I wouldn't recommend buying those. It's the garden gadgets that are worth the trip.