plattsburgh bound- still day two!

Let's back track slightly- and use the maps:

 
In the above map our entire journey shows a tangle of lines you could never figure out unless you were the navigator (me) or possibly the driver (TB) - but I have broken it down by day in individual cuts to help anyone following along understand the route- so below is day one... Albany to Whitehall- then a left turn on route 4 into VT for the night.... the route follows along the Blue by way to the east (we will catch up with the west part near the end when we see Lake George)

then so far on day two we have started back along the byway at Whitehall - headed north towards Plattsburgh- still on the blue byway that runs along the right hand side of the map -

in the last post we had made it as far as the lighthouse at the southern tip of Lake Champlain - from there we headed north- it was already mid afternoon and we really hoped to get to Plattsburgh for the night.... LOL the google maps shows this as roughly 94 miles and so far we had been on the road from Whitehall about five hours...LOL - this is DART travel speed... I laugh when I think of my dad's travel style from our growing up years: get in the car-drive as fast as you can - as long as you can - then stop for the night and get up and do it again - with as few time outs as possible use the bathroom at the food stops and make gas stops as necessary but nothing else until you get THERE. (LOL)

 

where we are in the day's journey is about half way up where the little jog to the left takes place.  So back to the trip...

 

we continue along the blue byway (Lakes to Locks)and the next site is Ausable Chasm... which we drive over before we notice it- but as we drive over the WPA era bridge I look out the window and see a lovely waterfall so we turn around and head back to the parking lot and get out to see it...

 

This entry from wiki-pedia I think sums it up quite nicely-

 

"Ausable Chasm is a sandstone gorge tourist attraction near Keeseville, New York. The Ausable River runs through it, which then empties into Lake Champlain.
The gorge is about two miles long, and is a minor tourist attraction in the Adirondacks region of Upstate New York. It is called by some^[who?], the "Grand Canyon of the East", and is fed by the Rainbow Falls, at its southern extreme."

I especially like the footnote of [who?] LOL - but here is the thing- and we first run into this phenomena right here at the chasm... even thought this is in the ADK Forever Wild park boundaries- this is a privately owned scenic attraction-

excuse me while I digress a bit with some historical and facts and figures kind of stuff- again from wiki-pedia:

"The Adirondack Park is a publicly protected, elliptical area encompassing much of the northeastern lobe of Upstate New York, United States. It is the largest park and the largest state-level protected area in the contiguous United States, and the largest National Historic Landmark.  The park covers some 6.1 million acres, a land area roughly the size of Vermont and greater than the National Parks of Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Great Smoky Mountains combined.

The Adirondack Park boundary, commonly referred to as the 'Blue Line,' contains the entire Adirondack Mountain range, as well as some surrounding areas, all within the state of New York. Not all of the land within the park is owned by the state, although new sections are frequently purchased or donated. State land comprises 2.7 million acres, about 45% of the park's area, including the highest peaks in New York State, as well as Mount Marcy, the highest elevation in the state. About 1 million acres of this is classified as wilderness, with most of the remainder managed under the somewhat less stringent wild forest classification. Villages and hamlets comprise less than 1% of the area of the park; the remaining area of more than 3 million acres is privately held but is generally sparsely developed. There is often no clear demarcation between state, private, and wilderness lands in the park. Signs marking the Adirondack Park boundary can be found on most of the major roads in the region, but there are no entrance gates and no admission fee.

The park has a year-round population of about 130,000 people. Seasonal residents number about 200,000, while an estimated 7-10 million tourists visit the park annually. It is estimated that 84 million people live within a day's drive of the park.  There are more than 3,000 lakes and 30,000 miles of streams and rivers. Many areas within the park are devoid of settlements and distant from usable roads. The park includes over 2,000 miles of hiking trails; these trails comprise the largest trail system in the nation.

With its combination of private and public lands, its large scale and its long history as a place people have tried to coexist with nature, many see the Adirondacks as a model for the ways natural areas with human populations can be protected into the future."

And so a number of the sites are private concessions and the park is not exactly what we think of as park in today's sense of the grand national parks in the west...

back to our trip- Ausable chasm in photos- from the road as it was already late afternoon and if you are a "map-ophile" (there must be a real word for that) you know we are nowhere near our goal (LOL)

then we headed to one of the ferry crossings of Lake Champlain to get a schedule and further tips on when to best cross etc... the lady at the booth was only minimally helpful but the brochure was much more informative:

having decided that the ferry to Burlington took too long (1.25 hours) and had the worst wait between ferries if you couldn't get on the first one that came after you got there- we opted for the ferry from Cumberland Head to North Hero, Vermont on Grand Isle to start our following day-

and it was in Plattsburgh that we ran into our first "this is August and vacation time" hotel dilemma... after checking all possible in town hotels we obtain two of the last rooms at the Super8 north of Plattsburgh.  We checked in around 7:20 PM and headed right over to Gus' Diner across the street - because they close at 8 PM...
After a dinner of the Gus' Famous Michigan Red Hots we headed back to the hotel and being (now) savvy travelers booked rooms for the following night (with much difficulty) in Lake Placid - in two different hotels due to availability...but more on that later...

the entrance to the lovely Super 8:

Gus' Diner - check it out!

the "COLLECTOR'S MENU 2013"

My red hot platter with rings and then below TB's with fries shown as well-

 

so tomorrow- back for a quick foray into Vermont on Grand Isle in the middle of Lake Champlain and then on to Chazy where there is a AAA "Gem" and finally into the heart of the ADK Park.... stay tuned...

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!