Lake Placid Vacation, 3nd Posting

Tuesday we hired Sally Warner to be our "native tour guide." She was born and raised in Lake Placid, is a retired school teacher, former member of the School Board and Town Council where all votes seems to be 5 to 4. She is the local tour guide for private tours or the bus groups that come through. She also teaches bridge at the local community center and is a volunteer docent at the historical society's museum. She proudly pointed out all the photos of her siblings and other family members, going back to the early 20th century, who were winners of various winter sport competitions. She still cross-country skis but thought this past winter's 20 feet of snow was a bit much. When the temperature rose all the way to 75, she demanded that we turn on the AC in the car. She was dying!

She tailored our time together based on our interests: history and good view points for photography. The year-round population of Lake Placid is only 2,100, less than half the population of our condo in Alexandria. During the summer the population grows to 30,000. Everyone seems to be sports and outdoor enthusiasts. She was able to get us into the US Olympic Training Facility where we met a young woman who is ranked the US 2nd in free style skiing. Athletes come from all over to train here year round. We met 3 young men from Wisconsin, Connecticut and Ohio training for ski jumps - something they can do here year round even without snow.

The Olympic Center where the US beat the Russians in hockey in 1980.

Below is the famous rink but it is rented out for conventions now as well as still used for hockey.

The Olympic Training Center

She showed us John Brown's farm - yep, the same guy hung in West Virginia for his anti-slavery actions.

We also visited the Cornell University experimental farm where they make terrific maple syrup.  

In the afternoon we took the boat tour of Lake Placid. There are 3 islands in the lake and very wealthy families have "camps" on the islands, all costing several million dollars yet some are occupied only a couple of weeks a year. The most recent sale was for 4 million and included a 7,000 bottle wine cellar.

This is a typical camp. Among the current owners are the founders of Alpo, Vanguard Investments, and Texas Instruments.  Makes you wonder how he found this place - it's a long haul from Dallas.  There is a small air port near by but it only handles private jets.

A tradition the camp owners are maintaining is owning antique wooded speed boats.  They like to gather in their boats for happy hours at sunset.  Nice.

One of the frustrations has been how hazy it has been. The boat tour guide explained that it wasn't pollution but pine tree pollen. We also painfully discovered black flies. Seems they found me very tasty but George, not so much. He didn't get a single bite; I was covered.

The following is the view of Whiteface Mountain from the lake:

Wednesday, June 1

We drove to the top of Whiteface Mountain, the 5th highest peak in NY. We froze. Never has George had to dress like this on the first of June and, no, I couldn't get him to smile. He hates cold weather.

But the view was amazing. On a clear day you can see Montreal, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. It wasn't all that clear, but still nice.

The view of Lake Placid, showing the 3 islands and all those trees that are emitting pollen. Lovely.