Riding A Jet Ski On The Freeway, And Other Adirondack Stories

We awoke in Plattsburgh New York to sunny skies and a cool breeze off Lake Champlain, and it was as though we had left the rain and clouds of New England behind us, on the eastern shore of the lake. Jack Riepe has been nagging me since I first met him years ago to visit the Adirondack Mountains his spiritual home. Today, in the words of the late Mel Fisher, was the day.

I am sure I'm late to the party but the Adirondacks are lovely so how I've never previously seen them I don't know. Cheyenne was delighted, but seemed to feel a dry riverbed might be more picturesque.

I'm not sure the winding road to a Lake Placid rates as "wilderness" but we found not much traffic, gorgeous roads and incredible views.

The trails were lovely, empty, and gave us perhaps a touch of the much sought after wilderness.

After decades spent in California one starts to think that any hump lower than 7,000 feet doesn't count as a mountain. As a result the entire east coast is written off by the California mind used to climbing the Sierra Nevada and getting hungry in Donner Pass. But the Adirondacks are every bit as good as any ten thousand foot pass. My wife caught the artist at work.

The towns are small, intimate and offer old fashioned roadside refreshments. We stopped for frozen custard, Cheyenne rolled in the grass and in the distance we could hear kids playing on the lake beach. This is America from the good old days that probably only existed in our imaginations.

While I'm in a mellow mood let me point out that New York also offers a cultural advantage that travelers through New Hampshire and Vermont can only dream of: pull outs. Roadside parking, vista points, all these are an unknown value in the minor states. New York gets this. It's a state filled with invitations to stop and savor the beauty of the Empire State. We spotted some superb views up New Hampshire rivers but the reason you see no pictures here is because there was nowhere to stop on narrow winding roads with no shoulders never mind pull outs.

Saranac Lake gave us a lunch to remember, as we bypassed the hot dogs and burgers lining the lakes.

A reviewer compared this place to something out of Northern Exposure so naturally we were hooked and Eat and Meet Grill did not disappoint.

Funky inside delicious on the plate, tuna, a spicy Jamaican beef patty Dion's could learn to emulate in the Keys, and poutine which we didn't get to taste in Canada. It was proper with cheese curds, brown gravy and hand cut fries. The apple crisp for pudding was perfect.

Back to the road... more lakes, forests, dips, humps, views, forests, twists and turns.

Then when we descended at long last from the mountains we got into the plains that lead to Syracuse, our destination. However there was a bit if an obstacle and this one came from the ski. We were on the freeway in farm country when a huge black thunderhead appeared, stretching right across the horizon. Lightning flashed the length of the thing, a long black ugly cloud dropping half a dozen lightning bolts at once. We actually pulled over and called Steve who was in his weather command center. Which coincided with the moment Layne's cellphone went off with a tornado warning. WTF? I was seriously thinking we should go back five miles to the La Quinta we passed instead of making forty more miles to the homemade dinner that awaited us.

Steve reassured us the massive thunderhead, which he admitted stretched to Pennsylvania, was quite thin and we should be fine. Er...OK... And as we pulled out of the rest stop the wind struck, rocked our fully loaded car, and swept thick heavy rain horizontal across the road. Hmm... I was hoping Steve was right and this monster was narrow and we'd be through it quick. Meanwhile it was horrendous, as bad as anything I've driven through in the Keys, thick slashing rain, zero visibility and a whole bunch of cars that didn't know what they were doing. I pressed on into the rain and wind on the theory that the sooner we were through...the sooner we were somewhere better. Cars were pulling over, others were trundling along in tight groups like ducklings waddling after their mothers. That's the best of all so when the leader stops everyone crashes into each other. I focused on vehicle avoidance and kept one eye on the stripe at the side of the road.

Eventually we got out of it of course and then we got stuck in stopped traffic. Someone had wrecked. Bummer. We crawled slowly forward for what seemed forever. The road was wet and covered with leaves. The blue lights kept us out of the right lane but we could see tumbled vehicles, a trailer and a jet ski incongruously right side up pointing straight up the road as though the rider had just stopped and stepped away. Leaving us all to figure out how to get round it and home. We picked up speed to get past the rubber neckers and at the exit we came across a speed limit sign lying in the roadway. Oops! Missed that, dodged a branch, raised a ruckus of fallen green leaves in our wake.

We were lucky. Four people died near Syracuse that afternoon, one man with his dog when a tornado lifted a house off its foundations and dumped it next door. Leaving his vehicle intact in the driveway. 500,000 people lost power. We were fine:

God loves fools and drunks and I am not, despite my place of residence, a drunk.

Cheyenne and I had a lovely evening walk in a quiet wooded neighborhood, damp from the rain, cool from the breeze. Perfectly gorgeous. And so to bed.

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Coffee, Wine And Nearly Ice Cream In Vermont.

We liked New Hampshire with its dramatic mountains and "notches" as the passes are called, and we enjoyed Vermont with its more rolling hills packed into a tiny size, measured by us crossing in three hours from New Hampshire to Burlington and we weren't trying to hurry. Monday was to be devoted to checking out the area around the university town of Burlington. Forty minutes into our exploratory dog walk rain stopped play, huge icy drops that had even the locals running for cover.

Well, we said, let's find a museum or something indoors, and a passerby mentioned Shelburne Museum down Highway 7, so nothing loathe, off we went. And of course it was pouring rain and the museum is lovely but is scattered across the fields so we said sod this lets get lunch. Soup, sandwich and coffee restored us and we, being flexible, decided to go wine tasting instead.

Our baseline for tasting wine is Napa California where we used to go decades ago in the early days of wine's popularity. But we have visited wineries as far away as Eger in Hungary, Orvieto in Italy and as unexpected as Homestead, a Florida so to find wine bring made this far from Napa doesn't faze us. We enjoyed the low key, snobbery-free wines on offer in this little state with the big views.

Driving Vermont us half the fun with narrow winding toads just crying out for a motorcycle, not that we encountered very many, but I thoroughly enjoyed the UnFlorida curves and twists, and the greenery all around and above us, glimpsed through the sunroof.

The Fourth of July just past added some bright colors along the way as we hunted down the valley where chocolate, cheese, coffee and ice cream are produced in this industrious state.

Green Mountain Coffee claims a corporate conscience, of the sort the Walton family could never learn to emulate and they produce a very drinkable coffee at the same time. Their café and and oublic access is in this railway building attached to the working station of Waterbury on the line between Burlington and Montpelier.

We went inside and got free samples, and checked the usual dust catchers in display.

They had artifacts produced in distant countries where Green Mountain us working to create jobs and local economies. Layne shopped with a conscience..!

While Cheyenne was her usual patient self.

The coffee making prices I found fascinating, explained in film...

...and with actual beans from the manufacturing process.

With a reminder that Green Mountain does well by doing good.

We sat around outside as they shut up shop and enjoyed the coffees we bought. It was a pleasant spot overlooking the park in Waterbury.

Then we removed ourselves to see that other Vermont icon in action, though I have to say that when we pulled into the parking lot we were swarmed by a sea of jolly visitors mostly pre-teenagers and we took one look at each other and said "some other time." I fear I shall live to regret not checking out how they make their delightful ice cream.

The road back to Burlington was plunging into darkness in the valley, looking lovely and menacing at the same time.

On the chore of Lake Champlain the sun was still high enough to make it daylight as websites for the Plattsburgh ferry, a 15 minute ride to New York at a dollar a minute. It runs every ten minutes 24 hours a day so I must suppose lots of people want to cross the northern tip of the lake though where they go and why I couldn't say.

We were planning a long day's drive to Syracuse to see friends so we wanted an easy start on the New York side of the lake.

It was a twenty minute drive once we landed to get to the La Quinta in Plattsburgh, our jumping off point for our drive through the Adirondacks.

Our early morning walk revealed mainstream shopping once again, acres of parking anonymous chain stores and convenience. Time to take off for the woods once more.

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Cheyenne In Francophonia

If you can read the notice below ("don't forget, bring us proof and we'll equal anyone else's price" the classic North American sales guarantee), you qualify to live in Québec the Canadian province where McDonalds employees must greet you with a cheerful bonjour. Luckily for Cheyenne she doesn't have to worry about this nonsense as I can speak for her, but if she could speak she'd have to learn French too. It's a whole new adventure.

We left Burlington around ten thirty with the GPS showing Montréal 73 miles up Interstate 89 with the minor matter of convincing a severe Canadian immigration agent we were worthy of entry. Customs on this border only checks entry, when you leave the US going north or Canada coming south the country of departure has no checkpoint. Odd but true.

A New Yorker's approach to Canadian customs:

The Canadian inspector's severe visage broke into a smile when she asked if I had anything to declare and I lowered the rear tinted window and Cheyenne looked up sleepily from her princess bench in the back. "She's so calm," the agent marveled with half a smile as she scanned our passports and glanced at Cheyenne's rabies certificate.

The hour long drive through the Canadian farmland south of the city was stressful for me the constant speeder. I've heard stories about Canadian speed traps and the severity of punishments and I was glued to my speedometer at first. A helpful sign translates 55mph into 90km/h just past the border and I stuck to it on the two lane highway. That didn't last long as the locals zipped by in the passing zones (as I do when Québécois tourists clog the Overseas Highway in winter) but unlike Canadians in Florida I sped up and traveled the highway in their shadow. That got us ahead and dropped us acting as a rolling roadblock.

Québec has a law requiring French signs so my sweet navigator wife who speaks Spanish was forced to ask me for help with some of the signs. I gave of my knowledge with an open heart and absolutely no condescension. None. "Take 55 Oh," was the instruction from the passenger seat. Ouest. Layne hates not knowing everything so reading road signs became a bit of a trial for her.

Happily we were not alone in this appallingly complex city of endless road construction -travaux- and we had David's address in Layne's GPS which was great until her Verizon iPhone took a dump. At the border my Android phone went dead the second we crossed the line but miraculously it came back just when her phone bought the Canadian farm when we got to Beaconsfield. Oh, and we passed a money changer near the border and said to ourselves there will be more...which there weren't on a Sunday. Suddenly Mr And Mrs Experienced Traveler were rubes abroad but luckily Cheyenne failed to notice what a thin thread we were traveling on. She snored on the back seat. It turned out stores do take US dollars and give change in Canadian, but I just feel like an asshole acting as though foreigners should take our money.

Nice lakeside neighborhood..but oh shit! Do they turn right on red? Dunno? Don't turn you might get a ticket! But I might be holding all the locals up like I was a Canadian dithering on Eaton Street! I got out of the car and startled the driver behind me by lumbering up and asking est ce qu'on peut virer a droit avec le feu rouge? Just the sort of dilemma one is not educated to handle in the classroom. En Québec oui, mais pas dans l'île, he said when he recovered and disentangled my French. Not in Montréal he mumbled, being very kind. Well that sucks. My wife spent the rest of the day barking "Not on the red!" every time I automatically started to go at an intersection. Grr. It's absurd as Canadians are infuriatingly polite when driving, even the speeders are patient so turning tight on the red should be legal. But as I kept repeating it's their city and they will be snowed under in a few months. Serves them right.

We stopped to let Cheyenne out of the car and have a drink while we tried to reach Life on two wheels, the scoot commute on our bolshie telephones. That was a Monty Python moment standing in a school parking lot staring at our phones wondering why they wouldn't work - yes! - no! -one bar! - three bars! - no bars! Grr. We're going back to AT & T in September, because Verizon doesn't have the coverage we like, and my wife still hadn't got over the zero Verizon coverage in Puerto Rico when her pals with Ma Bell were chattering away throughout their vacation last Spring and she was mute.

All's well that ends well and we were welcomed with beer and great conversation, wide ranging and adult. Cheyenne, the whore, splayed herself in the alligator position on David and Susan's cool tile floor. It was like she had read David's comment on this page over my shoulder:

My Vespa is also at your disposal, with two medium Nolan modulars.

Susan and I will gladly dog sit if you like while you roam the city.

Cheyenne is welcome to lounge pretty much anywhere in or out, and can swim in the pool if she likes.

No pressure.

All we had time for in this whirlwind tour was a late lunch and lots of conversation, thoroughly enjoyable, a delightful long drawn out afternoon, interrupted by food. We had asked to be shown authentic Montréal food and this is what David and Susan came up with:

Layne and I shared a platter with no idea what we were getting. It turned out there was enough that Cheyenne got a taste in the parking lot and she pronounced it good for Labrador consumption which is setting the bar rather low so let me confirm this stuff is superb even for American humans. Eat with your fingers which was a surprise in well-mannered Canada.

As is well known I loathe photographing people but I did my best. David told us a bit of Pete's story, a man devoted to fishing and the blues so he started out with a small eatery that became famous and fashionable when the newspaper discovered it... Now Pete offers live music even while he works the counter and still finds time to go fishing. Smart man he who knows how to enjoy a balanced life!

Ordering is made complicated only by Québec's antiquated language laws. In my opinion language will thrive and flourish if the people use it because they want to and because it means something to them. Corsicans still speak their own Italian dialect despite French cultural intimidation because Corsicans want to speak their language. The Welsh have a TV channel in their language because they demanded it and the English acceded. Italians in Alto Adige speak German because it's their culture, Basques in France and Spain do the same. In Québec French is mandated as a political requirement.

David, a bilingual Francophone argues that the language laws were needed to restore balance in a province where French speakers were kept down. He also argues, persuasively, that the language laws have pushed demands for independence onto the back burner. His wife is an Anglophone who grumbles about speaking French, a horribly complex language riddled with obscure rules and complex pronounciation. She views the requirements as archaic and in a province where only the wealthy could afford private education most children going to public schools in the hard core seventies and eighties learned only French. They had their career options badly stunted and are now demanding bi-lingual opportunities for their kids. Such are the complications bequeathed to us by history and I don't want to see this experience repeated in the US. most young Latinos in the US want to learn English the international language of business, but Miami is becoming quite the closed community and I get annoyed when servers expect me to speak Spanish.

For me, bi-lingual in Italian, a not terribly useful language, and able to get by in Spanish and French, the idea of living a life in two simultaneous languages is too much. I was so glad to get home across the border after a day of coping with people saying bonjour and reverting to English after the mandatory French greeting. For someone who doesn't speak French it must be hell. But Canada has its compensations. I'd heard about Tim Horton's forever, a genuinely Canadian fast food chain, doughnuts and sandwiches, coffee and pastries. Cheyenne was unimpressed, and really it is simply a coffee shop chain acting as a Canadian symbol.

We made complete asses of ourselves trying to figure out what to buy. We were ideal Canadians as we tried to politely usher other customers ahead of us as we tried to find our way through the menu. Merde. Luckily the clerk was as patient as a real Canadian would be, and didn't shoot us as we dithered. No tips as clerks get paid properly in the land of universal health care.

Doughnuts? Bagels? Croissants?

We took our pastries and I got a to-go cup to take home to use at work.

Susan had told us about Yagel Bagel a place where they make a particular type of Jewish bagel, a challenge my wife couldn't resist. She did the buying and I listened to the youngsters wish they lived in "the States." Yeah they know free health care is better than the madness in the US but they want to get out of Québec. They don't like being second class citizens in a French speaking world. That struck a nerve, rather similar to how Republicans egg their followers to hate immigrants. It seems like it's too easy to not value your citizens wherever you live. The bagels were good though, chewy, aerated and crisp. Different and good. Cheyenne got a taste and approved. It was an interesting Jewish food outlet in a strip mall.

The sun was starting to set and if we didn't get going we would be on the road in the dark so naturally we went shopping. Layne likes to check local foods when we travel so we cruised the aisles of a supermarket we happened across. English chocolates are a perennial favorite so we snagged Maltesers as well as a few curry sauces, French cheese and a black carrier bag of a peculiar design made if recycled plastic. Souvenirs with a useful bent.

Why Exxon is known as Esso around the world except in the US I don't know but it always has been since I can remember. It still is apparently north of the border. Gas was around $1.50 Canadian a liter which was a lot more than in the US. We drove north with a full tank.

Check this out; lawyers work in Canada just like they do here. David told me if you drive more than 25mph over the limit you can have your car impounded. That demands attention. And every time you get a moving violation the cost to renew your driver' slice she goes up. No wonder they drive like slow pokes in the US. In a Florida I do traffic school and get no points. Take that Canada! Socialist buggers!

I think we in the US can learn some stuff from our rather rule riddled neighbors to the north, though Susan was quick to point out it isn't perfect there, just as things aren't perfect here. What hurts me is that instead of thinking about stuff and asking questions we react in a knee jerk way. Canadians have a health care system that costs less and covers everyone. It's not perfect but we in the US are driving our sick neighbors bankrupt with our corrupt, insurance driven non-system.

I like the energy in the US, the idea that anything is possible, which allows for bad shit, just as much as good stuff in life. Living here requires paying attention and in a country devoted to distracted driving it seems a lot to ask people to live while planning for their futures. Yet that's what happens in the US and a lot of people fall by the wayside. It seems like we should be our brother's keepers and do a better job of looking out for each other. We keep talking about freedom but to me it feels like the word has lost its meaning when people don't have work but are loaded with debt and fear. I hope we can find our way out of this endless recession without giving in to fear or sloganeering. The cool part is that the US has a history of reinventing itself and that gives me hope.

I couldn't live my life in Canada, mind you as I am devoted to warm weather so Canada as a whole is outside my comfort zone. But they have well regulated banks, gun laws that allow hunting but not hand guns, no desire to conquer the world combined with abundant natural resources. And gas at $6:30 a gallon because health care is never free. I always feel I'm lucky not least because I chose not to have children which has, let's be honest, given me the opportunity to be irresponsible to a degree, free in a way parents can't be. But I have always enjoyed life in the US because I enjoyed the opportunities offered without falling off the narrow rail of the good life. Work, play and lots of choices among cool places to live is what the US has offered me over the decades, a way of life not available anywhere else that I know of. How my neighbors raise children. I came away from Québec rattling a lot of ideas in my head about how we live. David and Susan were perfect hosts, great conversationalist and they rattled my cage in a good way.

We crossed the border at dusk at a small crossing into northern Vermont to avoid the lines on the Interstate nearby. We chatted a while with the border guy, comparing notes on the weather, federal law enforcement and life in South Florida. A car pulled up behind us and we drove out into Vermont as darkness fell. A sign indicated 50, with no suggestion it might be kilometers or miles. No welcome to Vermont, or the US or anything. The presumption that south of the border we need make no concessions to strangers. No cheerful bonjour! like the frogs across the invisible line. I think we could do better.

 

 

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