More Scenic US 20 to Saratoga Springs NY (Aug 15-16)

We're staying in the upper part of NY and continue to take the Scenic Byway, Route 20 E which at this point has a bike route; not much of that where we've been. Most roads have very little shoulder at all—lots of crumbling asphalt. 

It's a rainy day so we drive a little slower and pretty soon come to the Village of Madison which is holding its Annual Madison-Bouckville Antique Week. 

Rain was not about to deter the people who had driven a long way for this as evidenced by the huge parking lots throughout the approximate 5 miles along Rt. 2 with vendor booths on both sides of the road. All sizes of "tents" to display such items as vintage clothing, Laurel Trains (my brother George has these), furniture, Elvis memorabilia, garden art, and jewelry. And then there were huge areas for every kind of "fair food" one could want. Our friends Pat and Elliott from Sacramento will have to come here some day!

This was a few days for Irene to be reminded how lucky she is to have been retired from a Fortune 500 company. First we drove by Syracuse, NY where she spent a year (1980) in the home office and learned home office politics was not for her! 

 

Then we drove through the beautiful little village of Cazenovia where she played softball on a team with Kate Clinton who was attending Rita Mae Brown's writing school at the time. She learned to drink beer that summer because with the humidity she also learned to sweat and beer was the only thing that really quenched her thirst. Enough about me, after a little more of Rte. 20 and getting beat up because of the bad condition of the road and low visibility, we bailed and went to the Thruway (NY toll road) I-90. 

Mary Sue took over driving when it was time to get off the interstate again and brought us into Saratoga Springs. While she was driving Irene discovered a free place to camp at the Saratoga Casino and Raceway, established in 1941, using the AllStays Camp & RV app.

This is significant for two reasons. First, Irene doesn't navigate much or research this sort of thing often, but more importantly because all the places we knew of to stay in this area ran about $80/night. And we thought CA was expensive! This place turned out to be a great find. We stayed on asphalt in the back of the parking lot away from the noise and bright lights. We wandered over Friday night and watched the harness races for free.We met some nice people who had the Class A rig we parked behind. Loved the license plates! 

They told us about the inexpensive and quite good breakfast at the Casino, so of course we easily traded in our yogurt and checked it out. The horses were being exercised so we had a nice view as we ate breakfast.

Saratoga is really a very interesting place to visit. Lots of history, big art show this weekend, Victorian architecture, spas and of course the Historic Saratoga Race Course (est 1864) which is packed every weekend we were told. 

Turns out we had no interest in any of it, having overdone the museum thing earlier. Instead we took off for the day and did a drive up to Lake George (SR 9N, scenic highway) where the wealthy come to stay and play plus a lot of other people!

 

We are learning that going to see a lake in this part of the country is hard.The roads are heavily treed, and where ever someone can afford to build they do and there is no access.So we enjoyed the signs along the road that were sponsored by different businesses in the area. This one is about the maple syrup business and we liked it because it has the name of a friend back home. 

  

Finally we arrive at a destination Mary Sue had picked for the day and she gets to tell you about it. Fort Ticonderoga is in the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains and overlooking Vermont's picturesque Green Mountains. The fort guards the historic portage between Lake Champlain and Lake George. Fort Ticonderoga, built by the French in 1755, played a pivotal role in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.

The fort is fully restored on the original foundation with a significant collection of 18^th century artifacts. What brings Fort Ticonderoga to life are the various demonstrations of daily fort activities by costumed interpreters. 

We watched a mess cook prepare lunch for fellow soldiers using Continental Army rations, vegetables grown in the nearby gardens as they would have been at the time, and the camp kitchen.

We were just in time for a musket firing demonstration explained by a soldier from the 4^th Pennsylvania Battalion.  

Not only did he tell us about the muskets, powder, bullets, loading and process of firing, but he explained how much the colonists had to learn about shooting at the enemy as a unit and not shooting each other.

Humor sideline:  All of this brought back to me a segment on a Bill Cosby record where he was talking how it would sound if wars were handled like a football coin toss.  After introducing the teams (British and Settlers), the coin was tossed and the Settlers won so they set the terms.  They opted to wear dull colored clothing and shoot from behind rocks and trees while the British were to wear red and march in a straight line.

The King's Garden, on the Lake Champlain shoreline, is a restored, formal garden, circa 1920, by Marian Cruger Coffin one of the first female landscape architects in the US. It also features demonstration gardens showing how 18^th century troops and Native Americans grew their food. 

 

  On our way home we stopped at the Sagamore Hotel to have a late lunch, recommended by some East Coast Lazy Daze folks who had sent Mary Sue their trip log from an extended revisit to the Northeast; it has been a wonderful tool! 

We stopped, got out and while approaching the hotel, Irene recognizes the voice of a colleague from her Bristol-Myers days. Greg was in the parking lot because of a delay in his check in. What are the chances that the two of us from CA would run onto someone from Philadelphia who Irene knew 11 years ago now? He seemed quite surprised. I found it kind of amusing because knowing Greg, he might well have thought I was leading a boring life after retirement. Surprise! Unfortunately it was too late for a real lunch but we did talk them out of a "bowl" of clam chowder. While it was quite tasty, it was a small "cup"  for $10 plus tax and tip which seemed a bit much; however, the presentation was nice as was the view of Lake George. Ah, to be rich and not care about these things!

Because we weren't really full we stopped at the Ben and Jerry's we'd spotted on the way up and got one of the smallest scoops for the most money, $3.85/scoop. 

The Real Deal here is the Vermonster. Seven young men had just been served one: 20 scoops of ice cream, 2 scoops of 4 choices of toppings, and topped with a lot of freshly made whipped cream. They figured it was only 2,000 calories a piece since the whole thing is 14,000 calories and all this for a mere $49.07 or $2.45/scoop. 

We figured the gals who built the Vermonster must have been tired of scooping by the time they did our order! 

We drove back to our camping site in Saratoga where the Saturday evening crowd (casino & raceway) was impressive.  Mary Sue took pictures from the roof of our RV, but the race track was a bit far! They are warming up in the first and in the second, the white truck has just folded in the gates which extended from both sides to "start" the race.