Wednesday, June 23 – Friday, June 25 (posted late due to bad cell service)
We left Dave and Lori’s at 5:45a with the hopes that we could make it into New York at an early enough time to add in a visit Niagara Falls. It added an extra hour of driving to an already long eight-hour drive, but it was worth the detour to get a refreshing midday hike around Goat Island. We saw some amazing views of the falls from the American side and got sprayed every time the wind blew.
After leaving Niagara Falls, we headed to our campsite at Cayuga Lake State Park near Seneca Falls, NY in the finger lakes area. Luckily, we had the campground almost to ourselves because we were all a little cranky after so much time in the car. Scout fetched the ball endless number of times and we all got some much needed sleep.
We treated ourselves to a relaxed morning before heading northeast to Lake Placid. On our way, we had a nice riverside stop for lunch in the Adirondacks. Quinn practiced her photography skills.
I was extra excited to visit Lake Placid. About twenty-five years ago, I used to spend a lot of time in LP for aerials training and events, usually staying at the Olympic Training Center for 1 to 3 week visits. One summer, I lived there fulltime with 10 other people in an old lakeside club house for $90 a month so I could train more and it was so much fun. Visiting Lake Placid now brings back so many great memories of that time in my life that often seems so far away.
We set up camp in a cool forested campground outside of Lake Placid and headed into town for a swim and some dinner. We cooled off in Mirror Lake at the public beach in town and then ate dinner at the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery, which used to be called PJ O’neal’s and was one of my favorite spots 25 years ago. After dinner, we walked down Main St. for some Emma’s Ice Cream and even Scout got a treat!
Friday morning we packed up and headed to the Olympic Jumping Complex, a place I spent many summer days hurling myself off of the freestyle jumps into the pool to practice my tricks for winter competition on snow. We watched an aerialist practicing their front flips and took the elevator up the 120 meter Nordic jump for an amazing view of the Adirondacks and the Lake Placid area. They are currently rebuilding the landing hill of the nordic jump to be 45 degrees instead of 35 degrees to comply with the international specifications.
Next stop on the Olympic tour was Mt. Van Hovenberg, the venue for the bobsled, skeleton, luge, and biathlon events in the 1932 and 1980 Olympics. Quinn and I rode the Mountain Coaster that took us up to the top of the bobsled/luge track and we flew down alongside the old course used in the Olympics. It was so fun!
After pretending we were Olympians, we drove a short way across Lake Champlain to Vermont, where we met up with Kevin’s brother Mike and his boys, Chase and Cohen. How nice it was to only drive an hour and a half!
We will be here camping in Vermont for a few days and then we are heading to Mike’s house in Bedford, MA.
Hanging with the Tracy’s in St. Clair, MI
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