Lake Champlain

After we toured Ausable Chasm, and had lunch, we headed up Route 9, which runs right beside Lake Champlain.  This lake is the largest mountain lake in the United States, and the sixth largest freshwater lake, right after the five Great Lakes.  I had never seen it.

We drove for a while and got very frustrated.  The road may run very close to the lake, but it is so built up that you can't see the lake from there.  Suddenly, I saw a sign pointing to Clinton Community College.  It looked like the college might be a vantage point from which we could actually see something.  I think I kind of scared my friend as I did a quick, no signal, right-hand turn into the driveway.  But, I was right.  When we walked up onto the campus, and behind the main building, there was Lake Champlain, in all of its glory.

 The mountains you see far off into the distance are the Green Mountains of Vermont.

 This is the monument on Crab Island.  It memorializes the dead buried there, in the aftermath of the Battle of Plattsburg, in the War of 1812.  It's one of the few places where American and British dead are buried together.

The college, itself, is an old luxury hotel, which was abandoned, then restored to serve the surrounding community.  It was a lovely little place.  The slopes that lead down to the lake were covered with bushes that bore lovely blue berries.  I think that they are probably Silky Dogwood.

From there, we drove on.  It was a wonder that my friend let me behind the wheel again (we had taken her car on the trip.)  But she did, so she shouldn't have been surprised when I pulled another hard right at a sign that said Point Au Roche State Park.  Do you think that may have been one of the last times she did let me behind the wheel?

We drove down a long wooded driveway, past an entrance booth that was closed for the season.  We passed some athletic fields and, finally, ended up at a beautiful sandy beach.  We were the only car in the lot, and the only living creatures on the beach, with the exception of the seagulls.  It's a truly beautiful little beach, and I would love to see it in the Summer.

We stayed there for a very long time, walking the beach and just enjoying the peace and solitude.  But, were quite a ways from home base, and it was getting late.  So, reluctantly, we got back in the car and drove away.  This time, my friend was driving.  It took us two hours of steady driving to get back to home base.  We were very tired, but very pleased with our first day in the Adirondacks.