Lake George, NY 10-3-09

Wednesday we headed out to drive around Lake George, weaving in and out of small towns, and ending at Fort Ticonderoga. I am not a huge history buff, but I must admit I am enjoying learning about the different eras of American history. Fort Ticonderoga has been inhabited by the French, the British, and the Americans, at various times in its past. The worst battle here was between the French and British (us) during the French and Indian War- 1758. Unfortunately, even though the French, who had possession of the fort at that time, were severely outnumbered by us, we did not capture the fort, and suffered heavy losses. Eventually, at some point, the French blew the fort up and left it in ruins, as they abandoned it. The fort was reconstructed as a tourist attraction in the early 1900s. The way they chose to do it is different from other forts that we’ve seen. There are no rooms set up here that show what life was like back then, its more set up to just teach the history of the battles that took place. I have learned interesting things such as, in the 1700s the rifle the Brown Bess was introduced. It was the first rifle that had uniform parts and was uniformly sized. Before that, if you bought a rifle in North Carolina, and it broke, you had to go back to North Carolina to get the parts for it. The Brown Bess was made of three distinct parts, the lock, the stock and the barrel. If your barrel broke, you could then just replace the barrel, etc. which made it much more cost effective. Army personnel were responsible for paying for any weapons that they lost during the war, so if they went to the supply room and said they needed a completely new rifle, they needed “lock, stock and barrel”- hence the term we use when we mean “everything”- lock, stock and barrel. I thought that was really neat information. The following day the weather was not very cooperative again- no downpours, but very iffy. We set out in a southerly direction to do some exploring. When we got to the town of Glens Falls, we started seeing signs for “Coopers Cave”. Sounded interesting, so we followed the signs. The cave is really barely a cave. In the 1800s and 1900s they had steps leading to it. Its actually on an island in the middle of the river, which happens to be the Hudson River. (The Hudson River winds all around this area- everywhere you go, you see the Hudson River). Apparently years ago they decided it was too dangerous to go out that far, near the falls, so they put up a fence and now you can see the “cave” from the fenced in area. The claim to fame in this area is that James Cooper, who was the first author who was considered a “best selling novelist” lived here. One of his friends suggested that he use the cave as a setting in one of his novels, so he did. This is the cave that is featured in “The Last Of The Mohicans”. They didn’t use the actual cave, just the idea of the cave. So, that was cool. Now I need to watch the movie again, after learning all about James Cooper. We are really paying the price for having great weather for so long. For the last week, its been cold and damp with rain on and off. Friday we drove in a different direction, and landed in the town of Warrensburg, again. We recognized it from the day we arrived in this area. We needed fuel that day, so we got off the highway in Warrensburg because we could see the gas stations from the highway. We were towing the Everest though, so not only did we have to check to see if they have diesel, we had to see if we could even fit in the parking lot. We picked the station closest to us, on the right, and chose wrong. Couldn’t get the Everest into the lot. Now we were committed to this direction, and the road got more and more narrow and crowded. We ended up turning into a parking lot, going in the exit and out the entrance, since it’s the only way we could get the trailer in to make the turn. So this Friday we recognized the town, coming from the opposite direction, and were just glad we only had the truck. As we approached the town, the traffic was incredible. It turns out that it was the weekend of Warrensburg’s annual Townwide Garage Sale. It is billed as the Worlds Biggest Garage Sale and apparently even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. We didn’t bother to stop since it was too crowded to park our huge truck.

Lake George, NY

Rain, Rain go away…… Its been raining on and off for the last three days, part of the problem being that its not very warm out so it’s the kind of rain that makes everything feel really cold and damp. We spent one night on the road, and got to Lake George Village a couple of days ago. The day we got here was really a wash out so we sat down and did a lot of planning for where we want to go in the next three months and what’s really important to us. Even after narrowing it down to where we really want to go, we had to knock off some places due to lack of time. Sounds silly, yes, but its getting pretty cold up here and we really can’t chance snow or temps below freezing for an extended period. We already had a couple of nights that got into the low 30s. The first night it happened our little electric heater died, so we bought a new one. We really don’t need one, since we have regular heat that runs on propane, but since the electric is included in the site fee, and the propane comes out of our pocket, unless its cold for prolonged periods, the electric is enough. Our basic, revised itinerary includes Muncie IN (to see Jess); Mammoth Caves KY; Nashville TN, New Orleans; Houston, San Antonio, El Paso for Thanksgiving, Phoenix AZ; Yuma AZ, and San Diego CA for Christmas. I just finished booking Jess’s flights for Thanksgiving and Christmas, which was exciting, since I miss her a lot and I’m looking forward to spending time with her! Yesterday the weather was unpredictable so we kept our plans simple and walked around downtown Lake George Village. We ate lunch outside, overlooking the lake, but it started raining again half way through lunch. We spent the afternoon shopping- we finally found some outdoor chairs we like, so we have something comfortable to sit in now. Today it rained again but since we are only here for 2 more days, we decided to ignore it and go see Fort William Henry. What made this fort interesting is that they (“redcoats”) give tours and explain some of the things we saw and the history of them. Among other things, I found out that grenadiers were the biggest and tallest soldiers (and the only ones allowed to handle grenades) and wore tall hats to make them appear even bigger, so that the enemy would be very afraid when they saw them. Paul and I both had to think through and put this information in perpective, timewise. It took me a bit to remember that the timeframe for this fort is pre-revolutionary war, and WE are the redcoats in this scenario. Being from Massachusetts, I have had the revolutionary war drilled into me for a looooong time. It drizzled most of the day so by the time we were done with the fort, we headed back home to get warm and dry out. Tomorrow our plan is to drive all the way around the lake and check out Fort Ticonderoga.