Confessions of an RVer: LAKE PLACID AND FALL FOLIAGE

We moved from Alexandria Bay to Lake George, NY. The farther we traveled, the more spectacular the leaves were. We are now seeing what we came to see. Y'all, the leaves are showing off! I took a lot of pics going down the road at 60 mph and some turned out and some didn't, but I just kept saying Wow! and snapping more pics.

We are staying at an Encore Park (associated with Thousand Trails). It is Lake George Escape and it is a very nice park. It is also a very BIG park. They are starting to close things down around here. It has been pretty cold around here and I think we will be closing parks down the rest of our trip. This park has many cabins. They have a cafe. They have a pool, Fun House (game room) for kids, a store, playground, and much more. Part of the park is right on the river and this would be a really fun place to play in the water during the summer. The office staff is really nice and best of all, with our membership, it is free. Definitely would stay here again. However, they have already closed down their laundry facilities and most of the picnic tables have been turned upside down and propped up with the fire rings to keep them from being harmed from the snow.

We decided to visit Lake Placid right off the bat. The weather is suppose to be iffy around here this week, so we decided to take advantage of a dry day. We saw more beautiful foliage, and of course we had to stop and take pictures.

We wanted to check out High Falls Gorge. It is suppose to be really pretty, but it is on private property. The property owners have made a business out of tourists wanting to see the gorge. They charge $12 pp to walk down some stairs to get pictures. You can see a small part of it from the road. We decided that we would take pics of the small, FREE part from the road.

We then headed to Lake Placid. Lake Placid hosted the 1932 and the 1980 winter Olympics. They still have Olympic Village, the ice arenas, and the ice ovals. I don't know if you remember, but I remember the excitement of the 1980 US hockey team, made up of all amateur hockey players, playing the Russian hockey team, which was made up of professional hockey players, for the gold medal. NO ONE thought the Americans had a snowball's chance in hell of winning that game. They did! I remember the excitement, the feeling of patriotism, the absolute ecstasy of that time. When you walk into that arena and see the pictures and the banners, well, it just gave me goosebumps.

We sort of had free reign of walking through all the facilities. They have activities that you can do there during the summer, but that has ended. They will have things open for ski season once snow starts falling. We also went into the rink used in the 1932 Olympics. The US won quite a few gold medals during those Olympics. Something special about being some place where so many great athletes competed.

We left there and went to White Face Mountain. They have the ski jumps, used in the Olympics, still there, as well as the ski runs. Again, this is one of those things that you have to pay to visit. We wanted to go to the top and by the time we got to the pay station, we weren't sure if the visibility was worth paying. When we asked the clerk, she said it was hailing on top, but visibility was good. She also said that they were expecting snow that evening and if that happened, the visibility would not be good and the leaves would all fall off. The hail turned out to be sleet and it had stopped by the time we got to the top.

You drive to the top, park, and then either walk steps that went up the equivalent of 28 floors or go through a tunnel to an elevator. I went to the elevator, Mr. W walked the steps. When we got to the top, the wind was howling and it was freezing cold. I ran out of a waiting area (for the elevator) and snapped pictures as my teeth chattered! Then I ran back into the waiting area and waited for everyone else to get pictures.