Travel Log Days 1-4: West Point on the way to Lake Placid

Day 1 (August 2nd)

After doing our best to leave by noon after some unforeseen circumstances, we drove almost five hours to Highland Falls, New York.  We stopped once at the Delaware “Catch-All” Station off the highway for PB&J, a surprisingly tasty ham and cheese sandwich, Doritos, and expensive bottled water.  Otherwise, it was a mission to get settled in for one night, rest, then be ready to tour West Point the next morning.  

Getting a little zany after being in the car.

Dinner at Park Restaurant, directly across the street from part of West Point.  Notice the Luca shirt.

Quaint family restaurant with decent food and obvious small-town pride on its walls. 

Got some pool time at the hotel.

Day 2 (August 3rd)

Matt has wanted to tour West Point since forever.  We started coming to Lake Placid in 2020 when of course they had paused tours due to the pandemic.  This is the first summer that they’re back, so he planned our drive up around this stop.  It requires background checks and methodical check-in procedures which marching band me and teacher me appreciates.  

I went in not really knowing what to expect and was instantly impressed with how nice, how sincere, and how important the entire tour felt to take.  Our tour guide Bill was a gentle, humble, teddy bear of a guy who paced things well and kept things interesting and suited for the group’s interest.  Campus is beautiful, spotless and home to many traditions.  I picked up on a few sayings like “on post” (anything on campus is said to be “on post”, as in, “there is a quarry on post.”) and was reminded of a few we used to use under my high school band director - also a former Army soldier - like mess hall, ranks, and demerits.  Our tour only touched the surface, but it was very well done and I was genuinely interested the entire time.  Matt wants to come back and see if we can get a day pass to explore on our own for longer.  I’ll try not to screw up enough to prevent us from being invited to do so.  

West Point Museum (not officially “on post” but next to the visitor center). 

View of the mess hall and some barracks from outside the chapel. 

The chapel was gorgeous.  

Notice the Bibles and hymnals perfectly arranged in line.  Arthur touched a few and days later I’m anxious we’re now on a list. 

I took this picture early on, thinking it was all of the organ pipes.  It’s not.  Turns out this is one of the biggest organs used in a religious institution.  The pipes go around the entire building, but these are just the most noticeable. 

I was the only one on our tour (or any of Bill’s tours, according to Bill) that plays or has played the organ. Thank God I didn’t have to prove it because look at this thing.  

Beautiful stained glass at the altar.  He explained its history but I was distracted by trying to find more organ pipes.  

“Duty. Honor. Country”

Constitution Island.  Revolutionary War History here on the Hudson. 

Parade field

Several statues of former superintendents and generals such as Douglas MacArthur, Sylvanus Thayer (Father of West Point), George Washington, Patton, Eisenhower, Grant, and others lined the parade field. 

Not a great picture but this is the library.  If you were to zoom in you’d see a pine tree.  Next to the pine tree, holding field glasses and turned away from the library is a statue of Patton.  It is said that Patton had difficulty in school academics, because he had problems with reading and writing that would nowadays be attributed to dyslexia.  One of his self-deprecating quotes was that “he couldn’t find the library”.  The statue makes light of this.  My grandfather was in Patton’s army during WWII.  

Statue of a Buffalo Soldier. 

In front of the West Point Museum.  We didn’t tour it this time as we probably couldn’t have convinced Arthur for much longer than the tour allowed, but hope to return.  

Arthur took this picture.  :-) 

We then drove four hours to our final destination - Lake Placid.  Hooray!  We immediately went to the beach (not pictured) and then directly to mini-golf at our beloved Boots and Birdies.  

Sunset by the water from our rental’s backyard.  

Dusk selfie.

Happy guy in his “vacation bunk bed”.  Top bunk is still too scary. 

Day 3 (August 4th)

First full day in Lake Placid.  We are staying in the same AirBnB that we stayed in the summer of 2020, 2021, and now 2022.  Because...it’s fabulous.  This year my mom has joined us and is staying in a one-bedroom unit in the same building.  If you’re looking for a peaceful vacation with a throwback feel and a focus on nature, this is it.  

Morning walk around the lake pic. 

Third stay and just noticed the decoy owl perched on the neighboring roof out our bedroom window.  And now that I’ve noticed it, I’ve noticed several birds also noticing it and trying to interact with it which I find delightful. 

Mini-golf Day 2.  Mini-golf is daily here.  It’s the only sporty “thing” that has me at a “learned the course” status.  Oh -and Arthur is wearing an OSU shirt that his Dad wore at age 6.  

Did the mining after mini-golf.  “Mama, I found TEETH!” 

I love these maps.  I tend to keep them when I get them on vacations if/when they have them.  The town is called Lake Placid.  However, the main lake where all the shops, restaurants and most places to stay is Mirror Lake.  Lake Placid is at the top of this map and is larger than Mirror Lake.  The top blue circle is where we are staying.  The bottom blue circle is the beach.  Diagonally upward left from the beach (larger white buildings) is the huge Olympic complex with the hockey rink (Miracle on Ice, 1980) and ice skating rink as well as a small Winter Olympics museum.  Just off the bottom of the map a few miles out of town is the ski jump complex, the bobsled track site, and some of the downhill skiing sites.  

Because Granny is along, and because the pandemic has sorta eased up, we got to go to happy hour by the lake.  I had a wonderful kombucha gin blueberry mint cocktail and we shared very expensive but delicious New York cheeses and a comically tiny vegetable something or other.  Great view too!  (And company.) 

Sunset #2 from the back yard.  I had just gotten off my first SUP of the trip. 

Day 4 (August 5th)

The bobsled experience at Mt. Van Hoevenberg.  The white stuff is the bobsled track.  Matt did the thing because he is not a chicken like me.  It’s on rollers, a driver does all the hard stuff, and they start you at halfway up the track because if they started you at all the way up you would gain too much speed for it to be safe for normal, non-Olympian people.  He said it was fun, and that it went about 50mph and the turns were thrilling.  I sat with the other rider’s wife and watched it on a screen and made bets about how braggy our husbands would act for the rest of the day.  

While we did / watched the bobsled experience, Granny took Arthur to the adjacent rock climbing gym where he tried rock climbing for the first time.  Huge hit.  I think our life is going to get more expensive.  

Then we went to the Ski Jump Complex.  We went here last year and it was incredible even when the landing hill was under construction and on a cloudy day.  This year was even better, as both the weather and the construction had improved.  This is one of the bobsleds from the 1980 Winter Olympics up in the observation deck.  

The Winter Olympics are now too large to ever be held in Lake Placid again, as they’d have to build several more sites and hotels to accommodate the larger media and spectator crowds.  But they can and still do hold major national and international events here, such as this one coming in 2023.  

From the top of the larger (of two) ski jumps.  The landing hill is now complete.  They had to extend it to accommodate more modern ski jumps.  

From the Coach’s Observation Tower, lower than where we were from the top but at a good angle for viewing the landings.  

View back up from the Coach’s Tower.

View from ground level.  These things tower above the trees as you drive into Lake Placid.  

Back to the beach / playground for some pre-dinner play.  Arthur has made several friends which is heartwarming to watch.  He is great about just inviting people to play with him, in a way that I wish shy-Angie could have been back then.  

Scootering back home for dinner. 

Vacation Tradition:  Matt makes these ice cream cookie sandwich dessert things and they are phenomenal. 

Not pictured for Day 4:  

- Mini-golf during which I WON with a score of 39.  

- Our first time reading a “Martha Speaks” book at night-night...hilarious.  Thanks Caitlin for sharing your some of your favorite childhood books with us!  We read “Martha Blah-blah” where Martha the dog runs into a problem when the new Alphabet Soup Factory Owner changes the recipe and Martha no longer has all 26 letters in her daily meals to help her speak coherently.  Darling and funny, my favorite combo for kids books.  

- Did I mention I WON at mini-golf?  Against my husband?  The one who plays all the sports and all the games and has all the supposed skills?