Day 28 – June 24, 2014
Middlebury, VT – Lake Placid, NY
75 miles/two hours
We woke up to dreary skies and a quick check with
weather.com showed dire storm warnings, with threats of hail. Holy Moly.
It was so gorgeous yesterday!
Our drive was slow (back roads, again) and through the Adirondack
Mountains! I so wish it had been a
prettier day, because I know it would have been a stunningly gorgeous
trip. When we pulled into Lake Place, I
was a bit disappointed. My first
impression was that of a one-horse town that had seen better days (probably circa
1980!). I stopped to get the kids some
Subway for lunch, before heading to the Olympic Museum.
The museum, honestly, wasn’t all that – but the price was
fair, considering other venues we’d patronized.
For me, the highlight was the OLD television that was airing the “miracle
on ice” game. When we got there, the
game was midway through the first period.
You know what I did? I sat down
and watched the rest of the game – the whole thing. Fortunately, the commercials
were edited out. I had never seen the
game, but remember my parents watching it.
Of course I’ve seen many highlights over the years and the movie, Miracle – great movie (Kurt Russell), if
you haven’t seen it. Even though I knew
the outcome, it was still thrilling to watch and I got Goosebumps. Much to the horror of the children, I also shed
a few tears!
I was going to take the kids on a gondola ride up White Face
Mountain, but it was so overcast, that I decided to save some coin. I don’t think we would have seen much. I took the children to the ski jump and
offered to take them up (there was an elevator), but a few of the kids flat out
refused. Then we went by the horse show
grounds, where the 1980 opening ceremony took place, to see the cauldron. Security (due to the horse show) wouldn’t let
me get too close. I was surprised by was
how small un spectacular it was. Oh, we
were a different world in 1980.
Still, with all this, I was not very impressed with the
town. Then I ventured further into the
village, past the Olympic venues and down main street and holy moly – we discovered
another adorable town. I love this
country. Main Street was too cool for
words, but very crowded and limited parking – most of it parallel parking. I could be in trouble with my beast mobile.
I decided to check in at the hotel and try my luck
later. After the children swam, we ventured
back to Main Street, where the crowd had mercifully thinned out. I found some accessible parking and we were
off to explore.
We had a delightful dinner (although a bit pricey) right on Mirror
Lake - Lake Placid (as in body of water) is a little further north. The children were so good, I promised ice-cream
for dessert. While walking to Ben &
Jerry’s we passed a bookstore and…well, you know the drill. I had a sweet chat with the bookseller, whose
shop was open in during the 1980 Olympics and she shared with me some of her
memories and impressions of the games. I
asked her if she thought the town could still host an Olympics. Living in Atlanta, I frankly was astonished
by the small size of Lake Placid. It’s
tiny. I can’t even fathom how they’d
handle the traffic. She admitted that
she didn’t think it was possible, because the games have become so big. In 1980, the staff of ABC and the Olympic dignitaries
took up all the local hotel
rooms! Everyone else had to be bused in - daily. They had to build a village for
the athletes, which was outside of town. By the way, the village is now a state prison!
Just a little trivia.
