off we go....finally

OK- You probably thought about now that you were never going to get to hear about the ADK DART trip- but never fear- we begin.....

I arrived first to ALB airport but TB was only a half hour behind me. Our first challenge was the rental car- we had both reserved and since his was the cheaper we went to Enterprise first- they gave us Toyota Avalon and we headed out to the garage to find that between the time we left the rental car counter and arrived in the garage they changed the car- soooo - we renegotiated with a customer service oriented employee and got the mid sized SUV for the same price... so off we go...

we headed east- why? just because - we don't plan an itinerary ahead on DART - it just sort of unfolds... we learned long ago "you can't see it all in one trip" so we have ideas but nothing set and no reservations along the route we ultimately choose.

our first photo of the trip was taken in Troy NY after crossing the Hudson River - we wanted to hook up with the Lakes to Locks Scenic Byways (the Scenic Byways map for north country NY was our general guide for the entire trip) but as we headed north through and out of Troy to Waterford, I spied a turn off for a lock  just as we crossed a bridge and so our first "official stop" was Lock # 3 - on what we believed was the Champlain and Hudson Canal (more on that much much later)

here are some photos:

 

 

a dry dock operation at the lock-

 

as we were leaving the lock area we spied a "junk yard" for the traffic signal department- and so we headed over there to explore before we left and got back on the byway--- I saw some interesting groupings of "junk" that I thought may make for good additions to the industrial detritus photos I have taken in the past-

you know when archeologists of the future dig back to our era this is the kind of thing they will find - and I wonder -what will they say about our culture and society?

but we couldn't stay too long because it was already late afternoon and we had a ways to go before we could find beds for the night- since many of the roads we were on we really off the beaten path -

heading north still- we spied a place that called itself the Ice Cream Hall of Fame- so we were up for checking out how worthy the ice cream may be.  As we approached the entrance we found that the farm where the Hall of Fame was located was also a working farm with fresh picked corn for sale.

the ice cream choices were many and while I am not sure I would rank it Hall of Fame level - the ice cream was good and since we both had been traveling the entire day on food free flights (LOL) we were happy to have run into this spot along the byway...

Next we found ourselves in the National Park Service Park of the Saratoga Battlefield.  We arrived just before closing time at 4:55 so we got an audio tour CD and headed off along the drive- which they told us would last about 2.5 hours if we got out at all the stops - we didn't get out at every one but did a some that seemed to have some point of interest. One heck of a battle over the weeks it was fought and the audio helped bring the Revolutionary War into focus for us.  We would be traveling over many sites of the war and this gave us some sense of the place and times back then...

the visitor's center-

by the time we completed that exploration we had traveled less than 50 miles - LOL and had taken more than 5.5 hours- LOL and it was after seven when we spotted a place to eat along the road. I mentioned to TB that we have to be cognizant of the time because while we have plenty of places in the cities we live in to go out for something after 10 PM here our choices would be quite limited.  We chose Sally's Hen House for the name... and the moose our front didn't hurt...

the soup of the day - spinach mac and cheese- which didn't match the mac and cheeseburger soup in eastern WA a few years back-

we shared the peanut butter chocolate cake-

the moose out front-

the sign-

after dinner we continued north and just as night fell we crossed into Vermont (the closest bigger town was Rutland VT so we headed there for the first night - found tow rooms at the Holiday Inn and crashed with a plan for the morning to eat in the hotel restaurant if it looked good and then head south for a small detour to Weston VT to the Vermont Country Store.

here is a photo(basically taken in the dark) of TB by the VT sign - this was his first trip to VT and over the course of our DART we would head into VT for very brief periods three times total - LOL so TB has now been to VT three times!

see you on day two --- safe journeys!