And then take the Ferry

Friday, September 22, 2023

We headed out to see the von Trapp family lodge, because they are the family from the Sound of Music and are famous for that. It turned out to be an excellent idea because we went above the fog and got to look down on the clouds. Gorgeous. There were somewhat hairy cows to add to the glory. Fog makes everything cool.

We stopped at a glass studio. The helper was making blown glass ornaments and we enjoyed watching how easy he made it look. All of the glass in the shop was stunning. The picture (taken sneakily when the artist turned around. I don’t know if I was allowed to take pictures or not, but he didn’t seem a very pleasant guy, so I was afraid to ask) does NOT do any of it justice.

Next up, Cold Hollow Cider Mill – the sign promised doughnuts and Vermonters inside. Okay! It was a gift shop of lots of expensive jars of sauces and salsas and pickles, but it smelled wonderful. We sipped some apple cider, which was spectacular. Neither of us thought we were big cider fans, but it was so good. We thought we should get a doughnut on our way out, but they were $1.99 each, or 6 for $5. We got 6. They were oddly lame!! Not yucky, but really nothing special and not sweet at all. Just a cake doughnut. I gave up after a quarter of one. Later in the day, as we were using them as snacks while driving, Keith said they were really growing on him. (I did not say, “like a fungus,” but I thought it.)

The only thing other than skiing that I have ever heard about Vermont is Ben and Jerry’s, so we signed up for a tour. It cost $13 for the two of us and there wasn’t much to it. We watched a 6-minute movie that said Ben and Jerry’s didn’t have much of a clue about running a business or making ice cream when they started their business in 1978. Luckily, Ben doesn’t smell or taste very well, so he needed to have a lot of chunks added to the ice cream so he could taste them. People really liked that. Unilever bought them out about 20 years ago, but they remain on the board and have control of the doing-good things that they want to do. Good-doing is always good. They weren’t making ice cream today – they make a flavor for 72 hours, then clean for 24 hours – so we just saw the room where it happens. It isn’t very big, considering they can make 400,000 pints/day there. There is another plant not too far away that makes a million pints/day. I can’t grasp that kind of output – I wish we could have seen it. They gave us a delicious sample, then Keith and I volunteered to take the two leftover samples. We are nice that way.

Outside, we visited the flavor graveyard – a cemetery of tombstones for discontinued flavors. It was cute.

We started our drive to New York. We were not taking the big highways and that turned out to mean we were taking LITTLE roads. A lot of times we were driving through neighborhoods! We would have needed a seriously detailed map to do it with the map lady telling us where to go. As we were talking about how beautiful the drive had been and how nice it was to be off the beaten track, we passed a sign. There was a pause in the conversation and I said, “Did that sign say To the Ferry? Is there a ferry?”

Keith said no, there wasn’t a ferry as far as he knew.

Ah. As far as he knew.

There was a ferry. As we literally got to the end of the road, we bought tickets for two people and one car to ferry across Lake Champlain to New York ($18. Quite a bargain, I would say). Our timing was perfect. We waited 10 minutes and drove on. I got out and went up on deck. Keith thought he was stuck in the car because he was too close to side to get out, but once he tried, he got out. It was a beautiful, beautiful 30-minute ride across the lake. I just loved that we had no idea it was coming. The directions did not say take a ferry, it just showed us driving across the lake, which we assumed was a bridge. A ferry was way cooler. It was terrific we didn’t know, because we would have been worrying about getting there “on time” and etc. etc., so it worked out perfectly. It was so great.

Off we drove, on to Lake Placid. I saw on Facebook a couple weeks ago that they have the longest cliffside coaster in the US at the site of the Olympic games in Lake Placid. We rerouted so we could give it a go.

Keith was very excited. He was grinning ear to ear when we got there, and walking very fast toward the building.

The coaster runs alongside the original bobsled track. We got into our cars and were pulled up the hill.

That was a great part of the experience. There was narration the whole time -telling us about the bobsled track and about the Olympics (Miracle on Ice and all…wooop wooop) in 1932 and 1980. When it was time to go down the narration changed to telling about the track we were running next to. Keith said he took some turns faster than he meant to because he was looking at the bobsled track that they were talking about. NOT ME. I was looking straight ahead like they told me to. I did slow down during some turns, because it felt like driving and like I was doing something, more than I was afraid to go too fast. It was loads of fun and Keith was as smiley afterwards as he had been beforehand. Because I went second, Keith was out and taking my picture as I came into the station.

They take your picture on the ride too and you get the pictures free!

If we thought we had been on little roads before Lake Placid, we had no idea what was coming next. We kept going towards the 1000 Islands area of New York on the St. Lawrence River, on roads wiggling their way along. A lot of the time we were alone – wondering where in the heck we were – but we did go through a town and got behind a car at a signal. He sat there when the light turned green, and Keith tapped the horn. He still sat. Keith then actually beeped. He sat and then finally went, as the light turned yellow. He went 15 miles/hour in town. We thought he was lost, and I kept telling him to pull over to figure it out. He kept going out of town, so I decided he knew where he was going. He went 35mph in 55mph zones. After 10 minutes, we got a very short passing zone, and he roared up to 60mph. What a jerk. Double yellow = 35mph. We wondered if he was punishing us for honking. I imagined getting out at the same place and getting to ask him if he was an idiot or just a jerk? I am not very nice. We followed him for 40 minutes – he sped up during each passing zone (only 3 in that whole time) and then dropped to 35-40mph. We had gained 7 cars behind us, all probably equally as confused about his behavior, when he just drove off and stopped on the side of the road (no blinker or anything). BYE!

We lost all connection to the outside world for a while and lost our audio book and our navigation. We missed a turn, but luckily the map lady came back and we re-routed and got back on the track. We arrived in Alexandria Bay, NY, about 7:00. We had dinner at the Dockside Pub and I had a turkey Reuben, because 1000 ISLAND DRESSING WAS INVENTED HERE! Theme eating is the best! We walked around downtown, listening to a live band, and singing along.