Nearly Blown Away!

Tuesday, 8/22/2023

We got up at 6:15. It was very chilly - 49°! We ate eggs and smoky sausages and packed up from Moose Brook State Park. 

We set out for Mount Washington around 9:30 AM. It was an amazing time… forested with sweat-inspiring curves, narrow roads, and steep inclines. At times it looked like we were taking off flying. The winds were cold and gusting around 50 mph.

Driving through Vermont we saw cottages, towns, rural areas, vistas, mountains, general stores, pastures, new barns, and lots of road work. We had some difficulty with the signal people along the road, communicating on lane closures – who goes when. Most of the road work was due to flooding earlier this summer. We took a small detour to drive through the capital of Montpelier. It’s a very small town and was mostly torn up due to the flooding. I walked through road work and re-construction and had a lovely view of the state building. We experienced beautiful roads, mountains, forests, farms, and rivers in western Vermont.

Heading toward the New York border there were no highway numbers or signage and no cell signal. We got by only by guessing and by cardinal directions. When we passed Branbury State Park, we finally figured out that we were driving around Lake Dunmore. At around 5:18 PM we learned that the “bridge“ to cross Lake Champlain was actually a ferry that ran only until 6 PM. Woody drove "extra" fasta and we arrived around 5:32 PM, just as they were going to put the chain across for the last ferry of the day! We were we were relieved to make it.

It was a lovely crossing with a friendly attendant. We received a senior and nurse discount and it cost us only nine dollars. It was a small ferry with only three vehicles, but a beautiful crossing.

It was only a short drive past Ticonderoga to get to Rogers Rock Campground on Lake George, arriving about 6:15 PM. This was the only place so far we have had to show Porsche’s papers and was the worst campground of our trip! Our immediate impression was that it was wet, dirty, crowded, old, poorly maintained and with trashed and uneven sites. The campgrounds did not take advantage of the lake’s natural beauty - no paths or docks or open areas. It was mostly dirt, mud, sand, and rocks. The picnic table was rotting, dirty, wet, and just plain creepy. The bathrooms were old, filthy, and had only cold water. Our fire ring was full of dirty paper plates.

We took deep breaths and set up camp as fast as we could. Woody made a brief phone call to join some of our small group to talk about church planting in Lanesboro. We fixed our meal, cleaned up, and zipped up our tent as fast as we could. The filthy sand even invaded our sleeping bag! We fell asleep quickly listening to C. S. Lewis' Prince Caspian, but I kept having “awake, nightmares“ of being at Rogers Rock!