Adirondacks Scenic Drive, Lake Placid and Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge

Hello from Vermont:

We spent Saturday and Sunday in Lake Placid, NY.  This post will cover the drive to Lake Placid, the resort town of Lake Placid, and our stop at Missisquoi NWR. 

The shot below is of Lake Mason on the Adirondacks Scenic Drive.  It is notable for two reasons - it's a very pretty lake and my nephew's name is Mason.

Once in Lake Placid, we took the Little Whiteface Mountain gondola ride to the top of the mountain where we saw spectacular views.  The photo below is one of my favorites. 

Sightseers were not the only visitors to the top of Little Whiteface Mountain.  There were lots of these mountain bikers who rode the gondola to the top and then took a "trail" down.  We had a hard time imagining how that ride would have been after seeing some of the very steep grades on the mountain.  Note the helmet and pads worn by the biker.  One fellow looked like a robot in all his gear.  Jim had a hard enough time handling the enclosed gondola.  He thought these guys (and gals) were crazy.  I have no desire to try this out.

On Sunday, Jim played the Lake Placid Golf Club Links course.  He was scheduled for the Mountain Course but a group of 36 went off ahead of him and the pro shop guys said he would have a least a 5 hour round.  Plus he was by himself.  So he opted to play the Links course and he teamed up with Frank, a part time resident of Lake Placid.  The course was pretty but the golf was not.  If you look closely at the photo, you will see a couple of structures in the distance.  These are the high jump ski lifts.  Something else I do not care to try.

After golf, we went back into Lake Placid and toured the Olympic Ice Rink and the 1932 and 1980 Olympic Museum.  The items in the photo below are the goal used in the US gold medal round against Finland, one of the flags the team members held after the game, and the goalie's gear from the game.  It was amazing to stand in the stadium where the US won gold in Ice Hockey.  I could hear Al Michaels screaming, "Do you believe in miracles" the whole time I was standing there. (A couple of teams were scrimaging in the arena adding to the atmosphere.)  There was a TV playing the US vs the Soviet Union game right next to this display.

On our way back to the KOA, we stopped at High Gorge Falls.  Part of their trail system was damaged during the recent heavy rains from Irene and were closed.  These falls (below) are part of the AuSable river.  As we drove away from Lake Placid this morning, we followed this river for several miles.  It was evident that some of the road was underwater during the flooding.  Lots of trees on the river banks were uprooted and we passed one building that had suffered a lot of flood damage. 



Today we entered Vermont at the northern end of Lake Champlain.  One of the places I wanted to stop was the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge.  This is very popular birding spot during the Spring and Fall Migrations.  It was very quiet today and the ranger told us that it's still very early in the migration season.  I did not see any birds other than a few chickadees, a lot of Starlings and some ducks I startled and got out of range before I could identify them.  I did see this very unusual mushroom growing in the woods.  It looked so perfect and bright that I had to touch it to verify it was real.  Does anyone know what this is? 

After the Wildlife Refuge, we drove down the Champlain Scenic Drive on the islands in Lake Champlain.  We stopped at a winery that had some very nice wine from the grapes grown right on their property.  There were so many cars in the parking lot that I thought the tasting room would be packed but there was no one there.  When we asked where everyone was, we were told they were out hand harvesting grapes ! 

Tomorrow we head south taking two more scenic drives.  We believe we will be able to travel all the roads on our route but that remains to be seen.  Our trip for Wednesday has completely changed since we were going to go north on VT 100 and a lot of that road is closed.  We will end Wednesday in Lisbon, NH where we will stay for two nights. 

Until next time...