Cheese Tour, 10/13/19

We ended our ADK visit with a tour of local artisanal cheese farms.  Great tasting on a beautiful fall day.

 Bennett enjoyed driving the tractors.

One of the source producers is enjoying her own tastings.

We took some cheese home to savor.

We had too little time with Jeff.  Our delicious Thai dinner in Albany was a chance to talk.  We are looking forward to everyone coming out at the end of the year.

Lake Placid Boat Ride, 10/12/19

For our last full day, we started with breakfast at the Blue Moon, one of our now traditional dining places.

Then we went to the small but lovely Farmers’ Market where Bennett hopped onto the bears.

The day was gorgeous, a great day for a boat ride.  We boarded a pontoon boat for a tour of Lake Placid. 

 Placid is one of the cleanest and deepest lakes in the world.

The lake falls under the Forever Wild designation which means few or no roads.  The shores are lined with luxury, and we mean luxury, “camps”.  Most camps are accessible only by boat.  Only a couple of the islands have roads and, by law, no more can be built.  Everything needed to stay in these must be brought in on a boat.

Middlebrook is the most expensive at $8 million and is used only a couple of weeks a year.

Older boathouses have a roof top viewing area, a small room or porch or space for several boats.  A revision in the boathouse laws limit the storage places to two “garages” one story high with no additional rooms or plumbing.

This is a creative way of complying with the new law.

This was originally built as a music camp for Jewish youth.

The weather combined with great sunlight made this a great ride. We all enjoyed it though Bennett may have preferred hopping on this bear.

October 11, 2019 Robert Louse Stevenson

As promised earlier:

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde and other adventure stories, came to Saranac thinking he had TB.   Dr. Trudeau found he did not and told him to stop smoking and spend time outdoors.  He ignored the advise about smoking but did the latter.

RLS called Saranac "The Little Switzerland in the Adirondacks."   He moved into two rooms in the Baker home, now known as the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage. 

The museum is a homage to the short life of a writer of great adventures with walls and shelves filled with items he received or collected on his travels around the world.  The resident-curator regales visitors with tales of Stevenson's life and his travels abroad.

Upon entering, visitors view a painting of Stevenson and his muse.

During the six months he was there his financial success was secured by the New York agents who accepted his copyrights and made his books popular reads.  He penned many successful poems and essays while in Saranac.  Posters advertising his books fill the walls.

Shelves are crammed with books and notes

and mundane items like this bathtub

 and the tree stump he liked to sit on near the fire.  Note the cigarette burns on the top.

He left New York, went to California, then sailed the Pacific.  He and his wife built a house and settled in Samoa

where they both died and are buried.  After his death, wealthy friends gathered the largest collections of his memorabilia and donated it for display in the home.

High Falls Gorge

A bit of history:  “Forever Wild,” that term doesn’t just describe the amazing Adirondack Mountains of New York, it is the law. Those two words, written into the New York State Constitution in 1892, mean no building, no tree cutting, no roads within the six million acre area.  Among the forests, waterways, and wetlands, there are man-made areas but the wild beauty is paramount.  The development of the Whiteface ski area was the result of an amendment to the law allowing the building of the Veteran’s Highway.

Predating the law is High Falls Gorge, spanning the AuSable River.  Dating back one-and-a-half billion years, the gorge is continuously being carved by the powerful water.

Paths with glass platforms line the river giving great views of the falls.

Rocks and whirlpools continue to carve out holes and are moved around by glaciers.

Views are breathtaking

and the fishing is relaxing.

Fall Colors and History

We enjoyed a day of driving around this beautiful area stopping frequently for more fall photos.

Several of these lakes have islands available for camping.  Access is only by boat.

The town of Tupper Lake once had a thriving Jewish population. The synagogue is rarely used now.  We went into Beth Joseph Cemetery where we found headstones going back to the 1860s.

 In the late 1880s as tuberculosis spread through the eastern states. the town of Saranac Lake became known as a destination for treatment.  Patients came to the town for its clean air, considered essential for curing TB.  Himself a victim of the disease, Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau came to the small town in hope that its clean air would ease his condition.  He went on to develop a treatment regime that attracted patients from throughout the East Coast.

A key approach to a cure was bed rest.  This is the cure chair used by patients.

 The Adirondack Cottage Sanitorium, or Saranac Lake Tuberculosis Lab opened in 1882 and is now a museum chronicling both the famous patients who were there and the treatments they took. 

Among those who were treated by Trudeau were Thea LaGuardia, wife of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the President of the Philippines, Bela Bartok and Zelman Moses, better known as William Morris of the theatrical agency.  Robert Lewis Stevenson came for treatment but Trudeau found he did not have TB.  (More about RLS in a later blog).  The sanitorium was proud to be open to all, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and European.  They bragged of welcoming anyone from gangster to shopgirl.  For all his efforts, Trudeau did not find a cure.  Today one in six people throughout the world have TB.

You noted the name Trudeau.  The doctor was a distant cousin of the family of Prime Ministers of Canada.  He was also the great-grandfather of cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

More Saranac Lake

Bennett’s class read The One and Only Ivan (we recommend it for all ages).  Cheryl arranged for his class to have a Q and A session with the head of primates at the National Zoo (it pays to have special connections).   We enjoyed listening to the students’  questions and learning about these primates from an expert.  No photos allowed for the class session.

The rain has receded and the trees are ablaze with color.  No comments are necessary.

Cheryl joined us for services at Lake Placid Synagogue for Kol Nidre (the evening before our Day of Atonement).   We returned the next day for Yom Kippur.  The congregation is very small but very welcoming.

Fort Ticonderoga

Cheryl and Bennett joined us on a trip back to the 1700s.   Fort Ticonderoga was designed by Michel Cartier de Lotbiniere.  The walls are angled so that cannons can reach attacking forces no matter what direction their approach.

Over a two-hundred-year period the fort was involved in wars between the British, the French, the Canadians, the Colonies and the United States. 

A team of soldiers presented The Cannon Firing Demonstration.  The leader gave a detailed explanation of the making of the ammunition and the careful procedure used to fire it.  He then commanded each man in the specific steps to take to prepare and fire the cannons.  It was loud.  Cannons in these days took about five minutes to reload and fire again.  It was best to get it right the first time since the risk of injury was great.

Among the famous people who were at the fort were George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Philip Schuyler and Benedict Arnold.

After the fort ceased to be used its walls were destroyed and used by locals for their own buildings.  It was rebuilt to its original specifications by the Pell familyy and became a local attraction.

Lowering the flag.was well presented.

Cheryl and Bennett found their way through a corn maze which Jerry and Anna Lee decided not to try.

We drove up to Mount Defiance for an excellent view of the area and of how the fort was well situated at a choke point on  Lake Champlain which was the main north-south route for supplies and transit.  Soldiers could be moved up and down the lake with ease until the fort was built.