Burlington to Schnectedy... you can't get there from here

There aren't major highways between Schnectedy and Burlington... I guess that lake and the mountains get in the way.  We decided to go back along the other side of the lake.  It looked like, if you took the ferry, you could more easily reach a main highway.  Besides, wouldn't you want to ride a car ferry across Lake Champlain?

I could have titled this day "Battle of the GPSes"  (or is that GPI?)  We have decided our "good" GPS (a few years old) is doing nutty things so we also programmed our old (built into the truck) GPS AND my cell phone.  (Remember when the GPS was a new toy and hardly anyone had one?)  There seem to be numerous ways to get where we wanted to go, but none of them were particularly good... so we decided we'd follow "best 2 out of 3" routes.  

We finally got off two lane roads and onto the highway when the "Activity Director" (me) decided we really should go see Fort Ticonderoga.  It was about 30 minutes back off the freeway and back to the lake.  Rob initially balked, but he knew I was right (I usually am).  When will we ever come this way again?

The day was lovely and the setting, high on a point of land, overlooking the lake, is spectacular.  The fort isn't a National Park which surprised us, as it was so important in our history.  First it was a French fort.  Then the Brits overtook the fort during the French and Indian wars.  The fort was only lightly protected by the Brits but had a lot of cannon and munitions.  So Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Men joined forces with Benedict Arnold to capture the fort and move the cannon to Boston.  Somehow they got all these cannons to a hill outside of Boston, without the British finding out.. and Washington was able to capture Boston.  

The fort and surrounding grounds were purchased by a hotelier who had an inn here, and decided to reconstruct the fort as tourists were coming to see the ruins.  Eventually the fort and the family home and gardens were donated to a non-profit, and the non-profit does a fabulous job of making history come alive.  We were there on a weekday and there were "re-enactors" all over the place...all in tri-corner hats...even the guys working in the woods cutting brush out were fully dressed in uniform.

This is an earthen oven.. there are numerous small holes where loaves of bread were placed to bake

Inside the fort there were a couple of buildings like this.  Inside were museums or artisans demonstrating how things were done back then

A Who's Who list

The Adirondack mountains are exactly as you picture them from movies and TV.  We passed many gorgeous mountain lakes, and saw a lot of summer camps.  I smiled to think of all those summer camp movies!  Tiny towns on twisty roads...not many cars or people.. it felt like an undiscovered Lake Tahoe.  A wonderful vacation spot!