1 of 5
2 of 5
3 of 5
4 of 5
5 of 5
By Bob & Tanya Waite
Our plan is to visit Saratoga Springs, New York again and take a ride to Lake George. Tanya remembers our last jaunt to Upstate New York, and puts it in her bomb diggity file. Whenever I mention a trip we took that she especially loved, she says, “That’s the bomb diggity.” I kid her and say, “Hon that kinda dates you.” Now normally we have a host for our trips, a visitor’s bureau, a hotel and so on, but this time we are on our own. So I make reservations for three nights at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Saratoga.
The time comes. We leave Bucks County Community Church on Sunday and make our first stop, Dunkin’. While getting our coffee and a couple of donuts, I put our destination into Google Maps and after Tanya gets done talking to the people who work there, we head out for Saratoga.
About five hours later we arrive at our destination— Embassy Suites by Hilton Saratoga Springs. We already ate a small lunch and just want to check in and rest up before dinner. The hotel, according to Tanya is “the bomb diggity.” When checking in, I can’t wait to put my feet up and relax. Tanya, however, is in her own world, taking photos. The lobby is beautiful and the staff is very pleasant. All very “bomb diggity.”
Finally we go to our room, which is a double queen suite. Now, Tanya is impressed. The room is a step above the other Hiltons we’ve been to. There is a living room with its own tv and a comfortable couch that beckons me to lie down and watch tv. Instead, I join Tanya in looking at the paintings on the walls—two are of the races at the Saratoga Race Course. The bathroom meets Tanya’s high expectations. She didn’t say it, but I knew it was the bomb diggity.
After a short rest and unpacking our suitcases, we decide to have a pizza. Tomorrow we will eat at the Diamond Club Restaurant, which is on the hotel property. After our Upstate New York pizza we relax and watch tv in separate rooms. Tanya watches her favorite Turkish series on YouTube and I sit back in the living room watching a movie. I get tired of the movie and read for another hour. Exhausted, I start to get sleepy. I come into the bedroom and Tanya is already sleeping. I tiptoe to my bed after turning off the lights and then join her in sweet repose.
We wake up early. I suggest breakfast, and we go out to find a place to eat. We see a little cafe called Country Corner Cafe. It is full of people, so we figure it must have good food. It is open until 3 p.m. and serves breakfast and lunch. Tanya has a breakfast special that includes eggs, French toast, bacon and home fries. I have their Western Omelet. We are both satisfied and if were to go to Saratoga Springs again, we would make it one of our stops.
After breakfast we drive to Lake George, NY, located on the southern end of Lake George. Coming into town we see hotels, motels and restaurants. We drive past the waterfront looking at the marinas and shops up and down the street. There are lots of people there. It is beach culture and the people and shops remind us of South Jersey Shore towns—even the way they are dressed. We circle around to Canada Street and park in front of the Old Courthouse Museum & Bookstore. Tanya says, “Let’s check it out.”
It is open. We walk in and meet the curator, Mary Hannigan, who introduces us to the museum and gives us a history lesson. She tells us that this was an active courthouse from 1845 to 1963. The museum has boats used by 19thcentury Lake George visitors and inhabitants and also by Native Americans who lived in the area. There is period clothing, an actual court, with a bench and witness stand and hundreds of artifacts. There is also a bookstore full of books on local history.
There are three floors to visit. In the basement is the old jailhouse. The cells are very small and one of them has a female mannequin sleeping on a narrow bed. In its time these cramped quarters were an encouragement for inmates to do community service during the day so they’d only have to stay in their cells when they slept. One cell has an open door for visitors to go in or take photos. Tanya goes into the cell and I take photos of her desperately clinging to the bars and looking very distraught at being locked up. I say, “Paid your bail baby; you’re free to leave.” Excitedly Tanya says on the way out, “That was the bomb diggity!”
From its southern shore in the town of Lake George, the lake is 32 miles long, ending at its northern shore at Fort Ticonderoga. For now we decide to drive alongside the lake as far as we can before going back to Saratoga Springs and the Diamond Club Restaurant where we have reservations for 6 p.m.
The scenery is beautiful as we ride along Route 9N, beside Lake George. The majestic Adirondacks are in view casting shadows on the pristine water which is as blue as the clear blue sky. We pass by cabin communities filled with vacationer homes and rentals everywhere, and as we drive we see beautiful small towns like Bolton, which has a very stately looking Inn. The cabin communities seem to get further apart as we go north. The traffic is sparse.
We come to an overlook, which is a perfect place to photograph the lake and mountains on the other side. We know the identity of this place by our iPhone photos—Silver Bay. Tanya takes photos of the mountains and lake while I focus on a dock that has boats leaving the dock and people picnicking on the shore. We get back in the car and before long we are in Hague, where we stop again.
Stopping at the Hague Town Park, we see a beach, swimmers on the lake and a boat launch. Boats are everywhere on Lake George. (There are tour boats, motorboats, boats with cabins, and we saw earlier a couple of yachts.) Tanya gets out of the car and is talking to a couple that were trying to coax her into taking a swim. I walk into the visitor’s center, which is small in size but packed with information.
In the visitor’s center I meet Joyce. Joyce is very helpful and recommends that we go to Fort Ticonderoga. She also gives me a map. I tell her that we want to cross Lake Champlain into Vermont, so we can tell our grandchildren that we drove to Vermont. I look at my watch. Tanya always kids me about how I am always looking at my watch, but this time she has the same look I do. My mind says in a panic, “Our reservations! Gotta go!” It is a 62 mile drive and it’s 4:30 p.m., and we have reservations for dinner at 6 p.m. at the Diamond Club.
We make it to the Diamond Club restaurant ten minutes early. We don’t have time to freshen up but we are ready. A friendly hostess checks out our reservation and seats us. It is happy hour until 7, but we order no drinks. A server gives us tickets for the snack table. We do go to the snack table and have our choice of wine, beer and some mixed drinks and soda. We only pick up snacks, which includes cheeses, meats—cold cuts, pepperoni and small sausages, salad, crackers, cookies and Swedish Fish candy. We sit and our server comes and take our order.
For an appetizer we order wings in mild sauce. For her entrée, Tanya orders the Cajun Salmon which consists of a blackened 8oz salmon filet, seared polenta cakes with mango salsa and cilantro oil. I order the Pappardelle Ragu which is made with tomato and wine braised beef, onion, carrot, Pappardelle pasta, Ricotta cheese and cilantro. Tanya loved her salmon, cooked to perfection and leaving a delightful fruity taste in her mouth. I found the Pappardelle Ragu to be delicious but a little too filling after visiting the snack table and then eating wings. I couldn’t finish it. The restaurant’s atmosphere is what I would call casual/fine dining. Our meal was accompanied with live piano music. Afterwards, we go to our room and watch a movie together on Netflix and go to bed around 11 o’clock.
We wake up early and have a quick breakfast of Danish and coffee and head toward the Adirondacks. This time we stop at the Adirondacks Welcome Center on Route 87 North about 20 miles from our hotel. Before entering the welcome center, we take photos of the “I Love New York” sign and then go inside. It is very attractive. Tanya says, “This is the bomb diggity!” I concur. We learn a few things about this mountain range that takes up one fifth of the land area in New York State. And we find out that enclosed in this six million acres is the ‘largest publicly protected area in the, contiguous United States, greater in size than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Park combined.” It’s the biggest park in the USA! Yet it has in it 102 towns and villages surrounding it. Impressive!
Again we drive to the town of Lake George, stopping for a quick burger on the way. After that we take the same scenic route and ask Apple Maps to direct us to Fort Ticonderoga. The distance is about 68 miles from Saratoga Springs. Fort Ticonderoga is situated between two large lakes, Lake George and Lake Champlain. We enter, pay our admission fee and drive past the King’s Garden and into the main parking lot. We walk into the gift shop and it’s déjà vu. I’ve been to souvenir shops at hundreds of museums, and they all intrigue me. Here I find books on the French and Indian War, the American Revolution and even specific battles in early American history. Tanya is looking at gifts, souvenirs and toys for the grandchildren.
We walk toward the fort and are astonished by how large and well-preserved it is. The gray stone wall protected by canons overlooking Lake George is a formidable sight. The wall themselves, thoroughly armed, and the inability to see the inside as we walk by, makes us realize that this is an important historic site. As we walk, Tanya and I lean on large canons to take photos. The view is compelling.
Once inside Fort Ticonderoga we walk in and out of rooms that exhibit guns, powder horns and many relics going back to the days of the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Men and women in period costumes play their roles as they explain their function in the fort. These employees are well-trained and even have personal bios of their character. In one room we meet a fife player whose name is Jedidiah, who is cleaning guns. He shows us the steps in cleaning and he tells us that he is from a New York regiment. He lets us know that he is actually 17, making him a little old to be a musician, since usually by the time he would turn 16 he would be enlisted. The musicians, since children were not shot at by either side.
After listening to several presentations we visit the air conditioned Mars Education Center at Fort Ticonderoga. The air conditioning pleasantly surprises us. It is a hot day and we need a little break from the heat. We realize that a short visit cannot do justice to Fort Ticonderoga. We arrived around 1:30 p.m. and the fort closes at 5 p.m. Even a week would be too short to fully see and learn the history of this venerable institution.
At the Mars Education Center we see many artifacts, some recovered from the bottom of Lake Champlain. We see guns, documents and uniforms. It is a whirlwind tour because we are soon going to have to leave. We did see Benjamin Warner’s knapsack, preserved at Fort Ticonderoga and watched a video about it. It makes me teary-eyed. The knapsack is a rare Revolutionary War artifact carried through arduous campaigns. In 1837, Warner attached a handwritten message urging descendants to protect American liberty and never surrender it to “a foreign invader or an aspiring demagogue.” It symbolizes sacrifice, endurance, and freedom. At this point we prepare to leave. And as we are walking out of the fort, we see our fife player and two drummers marching in formation to lower the American flag. Our three hours at Fort Ticonderoga are over.
In the parking lot a woman asks us whether we enjoyed our experience. We say we did and she begins to tell us many things about the fort. Because she is so knowledgeable, I ask her if she works there, and then she introduces herself. It is Beth L Hill, the president and CEO of the Fort Ticonderoga Association, a non-profit founded by Stephen and Sarah Pell which owns and operates Fort Ticonderoga.
Beth, who has a master’s degree in history and has been in the museum field for 27 years, is particularly excited about Fort Ticonderoga’s program of events and especially Real Time Revolution program. She says, “It's where we're telling the story to the day, to the moment, and it crosses multiple years that we're covering this for the 250th anniversary of the fight for independence.”
An important date of this continuation of this program is “Holding the Line.” On October 24. She explains, “The Continental Army, after it returned from the failed Canadian expedition, dug in and built fortifications across this entire peninsula and into what is present-day Vermont. All across this area to this great camp, Ticonderoga, were 13,000 men, who held the line as the British pressed south On Lake Champlain.
“And as the British were pressing south on Lake Champlain, they encountered Benedict Arnold at the Battle of Valcour Island, and certainly Arnold's tenacity and his American fleet gave them a pitched battle, which was ultimately lost. Arnold fled back to Ticonderoga after the fleet was pretty much sunk. And it was here at Ticonderoga where the Americans held the line against the British. And this is really a significant story as Washington was facing blow after blow, getting pushed out of Long Island to New York and pushed all the way down into Pennsylvania. It was here at Ticonderoga where the line was held, but had the British captured Ticonderoga in the fall of 76, and we probably would sing very different song of what happened here in North America.” (For a real time reenactment see www.fortticonderoga.org/ft_events/battle-reenactment-hold-the-line-for-liberty.)
The 250th celebration of American Independence is nationwide, yet Fort Ticonderoga is considered by many the best in the nation. Beth says, “We have received a lot of national accolades. USA Today highlighted us as best living history in America for the 250th. Smithsonian Magazine, Fodors, also USA Today, Travel and Leisure, and a host of other national publications have featured Fort Ticonderoga as a top place to visit during the 250th period.” In terms of visitors, she says, “We usually have about 75,000 visitors a year. And over our Independence Day holiday, we saw over 70% increase in attendance. For the year to date, we're seeing well over 20% increase in attendance versus previous years.”
Tanya and I leave Fort Ticonderoga and leave for the Lake Champlain Bridge that spans Lake Champlain from Crown Point, New York to Addison, Vermont. We drive through back roads with incomparable vistas. Tanya observing the natural beauty, small villages and changes in the topography can’t help saying, “Look at God!” She means, of course, His astounding creation. We make it to Vermont, drive around and head back to Saratoga Springs—now we can tell our grandkids.
We leave Saratoga Springs with a new appreciation of New York. It reminds us of the patriotic song “O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee. And we both thank God for His grace in allowing us to see some of His majesty displayed in the Adirondacks.
(bio)
Bob Waite is the editor of Bucks County Magazine and Tanya is his wife, travel companion and the co-writer of this department.