Friday, September 19, 2008

Day 75 & 76 - Keeseville, New York

Day 75 – Drive fromTwin Mountain, New Hampshire to Keeseville, New York
September 11, 2008

We now have had a night, a day and another night without rain, and the sun welcomed us again when we woke up, but the temperature had dropped to 3 degrees Celsius during the night so it was pretty cold. This is something we were not used to any longer as the advantage to being on the coast is that the night temperatures are not much different from the day temperatures. So out came the long pants and our sweaters to keep us warm. We would have liked to linger a bit at this site but we were going to move on so we would get closer to home (or was it because Leo wanted to take some train pictures at Willsboro in New York State?). Whatever the reason we packed up and left to travel west. We were going through the mountains and guess what . . . we ended up in low clouds and it was like being back in the fog. But these clouds were moving up and down and at times just gave us beautiful views of the mountains and the landscape around it. This was on some superhighways we took where you are not allowed to stop unless it is an emergency, so we did not capture this in the pictures, but later we switched to normal road and then out came the camera to capture some of this for all to enjoy.

Around 2 o’clock we came to Lake Champlain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Champlain) around Burlington, Vermont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington,_Vermont) and from there we took a ferry across the lake to Willsboro, New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willsboro,_New_York) . This lake is a large, very popular recreation area with lots of things to do, like biking, hiking, boating, swimming, fishing, skiing and much more. It also has many historical venues to visit so a person could stay here for a couple of weeks and still not have taken it all in. Unfortunately we are only here for 2 nights so that Leo can take these `fabulous` train pictures and then we will be moving on again, as yes . . . our holiday is coming to an end.

We had a bit of a hard time finding a campground as the visitor centre we stopped at did not have a campground booklet for us and the only campground the lady at the centre knew was just west of the town of Keeseville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeseville,_New_York) . When we got to this campground we were pleasantly surprised as it is located next to the Ausable Chasm, a 2 mile long chasm of the Ausable River sitting on 1000 acres of natural history. There is a hike along this chasm but it takes about 2 hours to do, so we were too late for it today but hope to do it tomorrow afternoon after Leo comes back from his picture-taking in the morning. That is, if the weather cooperates, as clouds and showers have been forecast again for the next 3 days. I know I can hear you say do the walk first and then the pictures, but Leo needs the morning light for this spot if it sunny and he did drive 18,000km to get here just to take these shots!

After we set up our trailer Leo went to ‘explore’ this fabulous train photographing spot and I stayed behind to play on the computer by myself, finally. Unfortunately there was no Internet at this campground which limited me to what I could do on the PC.

Pictures from today are combined with Day 76 – Keeseville.


Day 76 – Keeseville, New York
September 12, 2008

Yes the weather forecasters here know what they are talking about. It was cloudy this morning and rained somewhat later on in the morning. But still we did have 3 nights and 2 days without rain, something we have not had for a long time.

Leo still left to take his pictures but as I mentioned yesterday, driving 18,000km and not taking these pictures would not go over with his train buddies (Alex, Samantha and Jayla) very well.

This gives me some time to give you a little more information about this area. Here at the Ausable Chasm (http://www.ausablechasm.com/) we are just on the northeastern tip of the Adirondack Mountains, which houses Lake Placid in the middle of it. To the west is Lake Champlain (http://www.lakechamplainregion.com/), a very long water highway which used to connect the Saint Lawrence River to the north with the Hudson River to the south. Indian and French traders traveled these waters. French and British soldiers enlisted Indian allies to join their battles for control of the land, harvest the timber and mine the mountains’ rich deposits of iron. A generation later, rebel Americans fought again to control the resources and their destiny, or so the marketers for the area tell us. Now it is a large recreation destination with lots of history to see and explore.

We will not be here that long but it certainly is worth another visit and longer stay.
As you have figured by now we did not take the walk along the Ausable Chasm but went for a drive around the ‘neighbourhood’ instead. We checked out the towns of Keeseville and Willsboro, had afternoon tea at the ferry terminal at Port Kent and waited for the Amtrak train to come by and hopefully stop at the modern and imposing train station there. We were in luck: after we waited for about an hour the train came finally, stopped, let off 2 passengers and moved on again some 90 minutes late. The passengers walked to the ferry terminal and we went back to our trailer to have supper.

The evening was spent reading for me and photo editing for Leo so that when we have Internet again we can post, amongst others, the wonderful train picture which can be found here.

2 comments:

  1. Wat een verhaal weer vandaag Else! En ook in Amerika zien jullie weer mooie natuur en treinen!
    Leuk dat jullie weer een plek vinden, zeer de moeite waard,om nog eens naar toe te gaan.
    Ik vond die naam Keesville wel grappig.
    Jammer he dat de reis er bijna opzit. Maar dit is zeker niet jullie laatste reis, nu jullie weer de smaak te pakken hebben gekregen van deze trip. Ondanks het weer genieten jullie duidelijk nog steeds! groetjes Kees

    ReplyDelete
  2. ik ben nu bij tot dag 76.Gelukkig eindelijk weer trein foto's en wat een mooie. maar de foto's van het meer met zijn boten en zo en ook die golven geweldig. Groetje,Jeanne

    ReplyDelete