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Posts tagged Vermont
May 10-19, 2013: Overview-East Bound and Down
0May 21, 2013
by Jennifer
in Road Trips
Back home again in Indiana! Wow, what a great trip that was. It was loads of fun as Pat and I explored many two lane roads throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont (just a hint), New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
Here’s the overview of our trip, and posts for each day will follow (and will be hyperlinked below as they are added).
- May 10-11, 2013: Not much to report, as these were “get from point A to B as quickly as possible” travel days. Slabbed from Indianapolis to Dubois, Pennsylvania on Day 1, and DuBois to Connecticut on Day 2.
- May 12, 2013: Spent the morning in Waterbury visiting a friend, then my cousin. In the afternoon, it was onto the PEZ Candy Museum in Orange, then to Mystic, Connecticut.
- May 13, 2013: Visited Mystic, Connecticut – downtown and Old Mystick Village. Meandered our way to New Haven. Spent the next two nights in downtown New Haven.
- May 14, 2013: Rode the Metro North to New York City. Spent the day mostly hoofing it around midtown Manhattan, but also went downtown to visit the 9/11 Memorial. Took the Metro North back to New Haven.
- May 15, 2013: Left New Haven, visited another friend in central Connecticut, then continued meandering northwest on some state roads, then on US 7 into Massachusetts. Took NY 23 to the Hudson River, then followed US 9 and NY 9J. Spent the night in Schenectady.
- May 16, 2013: Today’s destination was Lake George, New York, a favorite tourist destination of mine from my teen years. Before heading north, we took a detour back east to Bennington, Vermont to have breakfast at the Blue Benn Diner. Traversed northwest and spent the afternoon and evening in Lake George on a cute motel on the lake.
- May 17, 2013: Spent the morning in Lake George. There was not much open yet, since we were still in the off season (just a week away), so we checked out the site of the former amusement park Gaslight Village (now demolished) and figured out which motel my parents and I stayed in when I was a teen. Played a round of mini golf at Goony Golf, and then headed southwest / west on US 20, visiting an iconic tourist stop, the Tepee.
- May 18, 2013: Continuing west on US 20 through New York state, through the Finger Lakes area, visited the town that inspired Frank Capra’s vision of Bedford Falls in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, continued on US 20 into Pennsylvania along Lake Erie on PA 5 (Circle Lake Tour).
- May 19, 2013: Continued along PA 5 (Circle Lake Tour) by Lake Erie, visited a memorial to those lost in a bad train wreck in 1876, saw the longest covered bridge in the US, and the world’s two largest loaves of bread.
What a ride! Stay tuned.
Pat & Jennifer
May 16, 2013: Day 7 – East Bound and Down
0May 16, 2013
by Jennifer
in Road Trips
Above is today’s trip map created using my Trimble Outdoors Navigator iPhone app.
Click the link above for a bigger map.
We left Schenectady and after getting my Dunkin Donuts fix (153 feet from the hotel!), we were off on a side trip to Bennington, Vermont for a side trip to the Blue Benn Diner, highly recommended by one of my coworkers.
We briefly took the Interstate until we reached State Road 7, which we took northeast, then SR 279 into Bennington. After discovering the Blue Benn is cash only, we quickly found a nearby ATM, and headed back with our wallet full and our stomachs empty!
I’d been hearing about how wonderful the crunchberry pancakes were, so I already knew that was what I would order. I added a little bacon so I could have some protein to offset the carbs! The pancakes were as good as they look, if not better!
Pat opted for a slightly more protein-heavy meal of eggs, corned beef hash, and home fries with toast.
After filling our stomachs and emptying our wallet, we headed out of Bennington on SR 9, and took it until SR7. On the way in to Bennington, we had seen a cool country store and would pass it on the way back, so we decided to stop. It was called the Big Moose Deli & Country Store in Hoosick, New York. We stopped to pick up some snacks and small souvenirs.
We headed north on a local road into Hoosick Falls, and onto a few state roads until we picked up US 4. In Hudson Falls, we saw this neat old Rexall sign at the local pharmacy.
Pat was in need of some ibuprofen, so we decided to stop and provide them some business. I also happened to find they had some homeopathic ear drops which provided some very much needed relief from the discomfort of my scratchy eardrums.
We continued west on SR 254 until we intersected with US 9, and took that north into tonight’s destination, Lake George, New York. Lake George is a very popular tourist destination in the Adirondacks with loads to do for all ages. I’d been there as a child (don’t really remember) and again as a teenager with my parents and friend Joann. That trip was loads of fun, as we went to the now-defunct amusement parks Gaslight Village and Frontier Town and hung out in the bustling Village of Lake George. I was curious where we stayed on that trip, and had some vague recollections of where our motel was. I know it was in the actual Village, on the main drag, and recalled it being on a slight hill. Sure enough, I found two locations side by side, one of which was likely our motel. One was currently a motel, and the other was a nightclub with an area on the side that looks like it was at one time a motel. A little searching on the internet revealed that it was in fact, a former motel. This is the geeky stuff Pat and I really enjoy. 
This trip, we stayed on the north side of the village, at the Sundowner Motel, right on Lake George. We were a week away from the start of peak season, so as we walked around town, though some businesses were open, more were not. We still got a feel for the place, and from what I described to Pat, he thought it would make a good place to add to our list of vacation destinations. It was actually about the same distance as his favorite childhood vacation destination of Park Rapids, Minnesota.
Here’s the view of Lake George from our motel:
We had dinner at a neat little restaurant south of Lake George called The Loft:
This restaurant was directly across from our motel and just looked like it was straight out of the late 50’s:
This motel was directly next to ours. Nice sign!
Despite coming down with some bad traditional allergy symptoms to something in the area (that I never usually have!), we went for a late evening walk, with only locals around, at the few bars open on a Thursday night. This would look quite different in about a week, when the area would be teeming with tourists.
We settled back in at the motel and had a peaceful sleep by the lake.
Today’s Photographs
Below is a slideshow of all of today’s photos. Click any photo to stop the slideshow and view the photos on my Flickr site.
[flickrslideshow acct_name=”roadtripmemories” id=”72157633529679406″ width=”600″]
May 2013: East Bound and Down – Prelude
1April 25, 2013
by Jennifer
in Road Trips
Above is the track for our trip, which I have planned using the Trimble Outdoors website
Next month, we’ll be hitting the road for the East Coast. This will be mine & Pat’s final trip east for a while. For the past few years while my daughter’s been in school, I’ve been taking her and my grandson east to visit family, but with this being her final year of school, next year, she can venture out on her own if she likes. Pat and I will thereafter be focusing our attention on pretty much every other direction of the country. We’ve talked about places we wanted to visit, like South Dakota (Mt. Rushmore), some National Parks, like Bryce Canyon, Zion, etc. Another 66 trip would be great, and in a couple of years, we’d like to do 66 with our grandson and go to Disneyland (most specifically, Cars Land).
But back to the current trip. We’ll be pretty much slabbing on the Evil I to Connecticut on Friday and Saturday, likely from I-70 to Columbus, then I-71 to I-80 and 81 to 84. could do that in my sleep, which isn’t hard to do, given how awfully boring that route is. I prefer the southern route, but not feeling like paying tolls with two cars!
From Sunday through Tuesday or Wednesday, Pat and I will be venturing from Connecticut for a drive through western Connecticut on US 7, north into Massachusetts and Vermont. I’d like to visit a diner a coworker recommended called the Blue Benn Diner, which is said to have really good “crunchberry pancakes.” That sounds good to me! We might take a bit of a route called the Molly Stark Trail, then after Bennington, head to a favorite vacation spot from my teen years, Lake George, NY. I haven’t been there since the early 80’s, when Gaslight Village was open. I remember the Cavalcade of Cars exhibit was pretty cool, featuring the Munster Koach, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bob Hope’s golf cart, and loads of other famous cars (I think it had some of custom George Barris cars too). I always enjoyed the area, so it’ll be fun to head back there for a day or so.
After that, we’ll meander west toward Cooperstown, NY and take in some of the baseball history there. Then probably cruise US 20 to US 9, and probably a bit on 9J along the Hudson, before going back east to Connecticut. As a side note, I don’t know what kind of bird creature it really looks like, but to Pat and me, the 3 day loop resembles some sort of bird. Even though a buzzard doesn’t have a pointy head, in lieu of anything else, we have dubbed our trip “The Buzzard Route.” LOL
Wednesday I’ll be catching up with friends, and Thursday – Saturday, we’ll venture to southeast Connecticut/Mystic/Rhode Island, then start heading back to Indiana on Saturday.
Other than having a basic route to follow, nothing is planned. Timing, lodging, dining, nothing! I have some notes on things that we might enjoy doing, but otherwise, I’ll simply have my iPhone handy and search for what we want to do on the fly without strict plans in place. I definitely like having a general plan, a little information handy and definitely having Internet access available to help find things when we arrive someplace. But overall, I much prefer to “wing it” rather than be strict and methodical on most of our trips. The irony of that is that I am very organized and methodical in my life and job. If we’re going to do filming locations or really want to see specific things or are in a place where we feel more comfortable with a plan, we will – but just letting things unfold is far more fun and exciting!
For this trip and future ones, I’m planning on posting trip logs and photos faster, hopefully nightly. With my new Sony NEX-6 and iPad Mini, I have a workflow in place that I will be “road testing,” as well as recording the trip using the Trimble Outdoors Navigator iPhone app. As I said earlier, I used the Trimble website plus their My Topo app to plan the route, and the iPhone app will track where we travel, helping me to geotag my photos on my iPad Mini.
So stay tuned!
Jennifer and Pat
