Continuing on the marked path, we came to a fork. We could take the easier, stairless Rim Walk on the left…
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Or the harder, your bad knee will be screaming and make you pay, Inner Sanctum trail to the right.
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You knew there was only one right answer.
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Stairs? Oh yeah. Hundreds of them.
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But the views were totally worth it.
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The farther down you go, the louder the roar of the water.
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And once again I was glad the adventure trail was closed. I love to climb on rocks… but generally need a little more than string when it comes to a bridge.
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Me. Loving the rocks.
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The Inner Sanctum is the only way to see this chasm up close and personal.
Our day trip destination in New York was the little town of Keeseville, home to the Grand Canyon of the East.
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We’d driven by this place on a previous vacation and vowed if we were ever back in the area we’d stop and explore.
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In case you can’t zoom in, one of the best tourist attractions of the Adirondacks is under the C in Lake Champlain. Au Sable directly translates to “of the sand” which makes sense since the chasm is a giant sandstone gorge.
Looking forward to taking some good pictures, I was extremely glad cameras are smaller and lighter than they used to be.
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After buying tickets and taking a quick look at the little history museum, we headed out over the bridge which was impressive in and of itself.
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Entering the site, it felt like they knew I was coming.
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There are multiple paths and trails but they all start here.
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And like good tourists, we followed the yellow brick road.
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Okay, we followed the yellow wooden squares… so sue me.
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The first open outcropping looked back toward the bridge. And after that?
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I knew my knee would not be happy.
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It’s a shame they even have to post warnings like that, but you know some bozo bonked someone on the head down below at one time or another.
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This was our first look at the chasm.
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And I have to say I was hooked.
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I was also glad it was off season and the “adventure trail” was closed.
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Because that’s a bridge I had no interest in crossing.
Because there’s never a lack of ridiculous things to talk about.
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Do I need to color rainbow animal poop? I do not, but speaking of pooping animals…
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The required new Lord Dudley Mountcatten shot.
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Another item has been added to the husband’s man cave display of torture implements old tools. A hobbler as seen on the upper left. He says it’s for cows, I’m wondering if it will fit in my purse so I can use it on him the next time we go antique shopping.
And lastly, something for Mark…who has a thing for flamingoes and likes to decorate for Halloween.
On our second day in Vermont we headed for New York. Seems crazy, but stick with me … it was worth it.
Of course we didn’t make it very far before my husband had to turn around and check out an old Ford truck.
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It looked just like his… same year, same color except this was a 250 instead of a 150. Price tag, for a truck made in 1994? $22,000. That is beyond insane (and made me want to list his for sale as soon as we got home).
Back on the road, we pointed the car towards the Champlain Islands.
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If you’re unfamiliar with this area, Lake Champlain is large. 107 miles long, 64 foot deep. There’s often talk about adding it to the Great Lakes but nothing ever comes of it.
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There are a few ferries that cross it from the Vermont side, but the ride is pretty and we weren’t in any rush.
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South Hero, North Hero….
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And Grand Isle.
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Miles and miles of nothing but farms, mountains and lake. (spellcheck changed lake to kale. No one wants miles of that!)
The husband asked me to find an old picture from his Marine Corps days last week.
You know, the one from the Pleistocene Era before digital photography… when you bought film, loaded it into a camera, took 24 pictures, unloaded the film, drove the film to a processor, waited a week to find out if any of your pictures turned out well and put the ones that did in a photo album.
As you’ve probably realized from my photo heavy blogs, I take a lot of pictures. Granted I took less then than I do now thanks to that glorious little delete button… but even back in the day I took a lot. So when the husband asked me to find that one special photo?
It would not be an understatement to say I was less than thrilled.
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Our house is positively stuffed with photo albums. They’re in the cupboards….
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On the corner of desks..
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In the drawers….
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And yes, stacked on the floor.
I combed through 72 photo albums before I cried Uncle and told him if he needed it that badly he could search the rest himself.
Because our first trip to Vermont was a quickie, the husband wanted to go back and spend a bit more time in the same area… so that meant booking another condo at Smugglers Notch Resort.
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Pro:
We’ve been there numerous times and enjoy the quiet, nestled in the mountains setting. When checking in this time around, we were going to luck out and occupy one of the newly remodeled units… which after our previous stay in the 1980’s horror sounded perfect.
Con:
My husband saw they booked us on the first floor. And since nothing upsets my husband more than people stomping above us, he immediately requested a top floor unit. Naturally there were no third floor remodeled condos available, so we were stuck in the Willows.
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Tired. Outdated….
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And very …. woody.
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Pro:
It was clean, quiet and had a comfortable king size bed.
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Con:
Would it kill them to add a bed skirt and a pretty spread?
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Pro:
There were 4 beds in the unit. A king, a queen and two twins… in case you like a variety of sleeping areas.
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And the master bath’s whirlpool bath was in the bathroom.
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It even had its own television if that’s your thing.
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Con:
There were two random cows overhead.
And Holy guacamole Batman! The wallpaper. How bad was it?
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Really, really bad.
I mean, WTH? This is Vermont… not the southwest.
The decor mattered not one iota to my spouse. It was clean, comfortable, and had working appliances with no one stomping above him, he was happy. But no matter how many times he told me to enjoy the sunrise off the balcony….
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I wasn’t forgiving him for turning down the remodeled unit.
I know I just got through blogging about our trip to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, but guess what? In the time it took me to do that… we took another trip to Vermont. And knowing the kind of detail I like to post about our trips, this series will probably last until Christmas.
So here we go, back to Northwestern Vermont…. where I found this helpful information shortly after crossing the border.
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COW!
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I’ve never swum with a cow, but now I kind of want to.
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Back in Jeffersonville, these wonderful silos greeted us.
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In Stowe? It was a truckload full of cuteness.
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Heading through Smugglers Notch in late October after all the foliage had fallen wasn’t as pretty…
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But following this truck and trailer around the tight bends was interesting.
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Vermont, where red barns….
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Windmills…
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And corn are plentiful.
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But mummified Halloween bears are a little harder to find.
On our last night in the White Mountains we skipped down the road to a very popular brewery called One Love.
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It was a huge place, and so busy on a Friday night we had to schlepp up the stairs to the second floor bar.
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Sadly One Love brewery doesn’t take their beer very seriously and only had three of their own on tap, all of which were quite disappointing
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They did however make a stellar blood orange cranberry margarita.
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Which I consumed with some amazing lollipop lamb chops so the visit wasn’t a total waste.
Our trip home the next day was uneventful, consumed mostly with me bugging the husband to stop at multiple gift stores so I could purchase a thank you gift for our Lord Dudley Mountcatten cat sitting neighbor.
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In case you’re wondering, this did not make the cut.
Upon returning home I happily put my newly purchased brewery crate into service.
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Four down, probably two more to go. Since my idea for vinyl storage/display containers is proving more difficult to procure than I originally thought, I have culled my collection down to a more reasonable number and now have a rather large stack of never listened to albums in the closet. It was hard to be ruthless, but necessary. I need to get my crates out to the man cave before the husband bogarts all the available floor space.
😉
Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 