Our Trail of Two Cities

One way you can tell that you’ve been on the road for a while: the names of cities start repeating themselves. Our day started in Portland, Maine and we started this trip in Portland, Oregon. We sailed across Lake Champlain from Burlington, Vermont, but also have visited Burlington, North Carolina. And so it goes. Maybe there’s just a shortage of good city names, but we’ve already been through two Berlins, and the list expands daily. So a repetition of city names is as predictable as the recurring carpet of big-box and national-chain stores ringing every metropolis.

Portland was a refreshing stop along the way, but we ditched our plan to spend two days there. For one thing, we discovered the worst motel we’ve stayed in for years, the Howard Johnson. Trouble should have suggested itself right at check-in, where we learned that although we were in a non-smoking wing, smoking was indeed allowed in the lobby and in many of the rooms. That would not have surprised us had we noted the numerous semi tractors (the front part of trucks) that built up over the evening in the parking lot. Oh great. A truckers’ hotel! How bad was it? The mediocrity of this place can best be exemplified by the quality of the paper cups. Once you put something into one, you had about one minute to drink it; after this time your beverage began to slowly seep out through the seams! It was my fondest desire to fill a couple of these up and leave them on the check-in counter, but this potential prank remained merely a vengeful fantasy. Suffice it to say that HoJo hotels have a prominent place, right at the top, of the “No Stay” list.

We did have a lovely dining experience that evening in the old port. The city is a very industrial, working port with a lot of energy expended on the export of seafood. There also appear to be a smattering of hi-tech startup companies, and with the presence of a new and quite immense Whole Foods and a thoroughly modern Trader Joe’s, the condo boom surely is not far off. Vintage brick buildings and warehouses have been repurposed into attractive shops, breweries, restaurants and offices, and some of the wharfs have been reimagined as the bases for condos that jut into the harbor. J’s Oysters, located on a pier, delivered a great meal at a very reasonable price, starting with six oysters for $6.75. These, we learned, came from Chesapeake Bay, the reason being that Maine oysters are quite small, and are not what most people expect to see on their plate. They were incredibly fresh (apparently they go through over 1,000 of these a day.) I indulged in a steamed lobster dinner, which was described as “soft shell.” That meant something to me, having wrestled to separate the meat of Andrea’s lobster the previous night in Gloucester from the rock-hard shell. This must have something to do with the molting cycle; at any rate, rest assured that soft shell is the way to go. This also came with a passel of steamed clams that were outstanding and stole the show from the lobster. We dined outside under a canopy, and had an unbroken view of the harbor lights and a nearby floating restaurant. Portland ME seems like a city in development (Hampton Inns is putting up a substantial hotel right near the port, and I am sure more will follow.)

Andrea had dropped the Rochester, NY stay out of our trip and decided to substitute Lake Placid instead. This turned out to be a stroke of genius; after a rather jostling start on I-95 and a series of toll booths, we ended up on I-89 and streaked through the glorious emptiness and vastness of the New Hampshire and Vermont countryside, populated mostly by trees. The Green Mountains loomed up along the way, and the views migrated from merely lovely to spectacular as we sprinted towards Burlington. This town is dominated by the University of Vermont, as evidenced by a half dozen pizza places on the main drag, but we headed right to the Lake Champlain Ferry. After a wait of about 45 minutes (we sipped on a beer and a strange Bloody Mary with dehydrated garlic specks in it,) the  modest-sized, open-deck ferry pulled in and unloaded. We drove on and the boat departed, about half full. When we boarded the weather was muggy, sunny and hot, but storm clouds loomed over the lake; by the midpoint it started to rain lightly, and then gained intensity. We saw lightning strikes in the distance over the New York mountains, and had to retreat to our car for the latter half of the cruise. About an hour later our car was disgorged into the foothills of the Adirondacks.

What followed was a shockingly scenic drive that we had not anticipated. The route followed the Ausable River (originally known as the Au Sable.) It twists and flows across rocky terrain, resulting in spectacular formations (Ausable Gorge,) numerous falls and scenic vistas at every turn. It is apparently quite an angler’s paradise as well. I found myself pulling over every few miles for another photo, some of which are shown here. Keeseville is the home of the Adirondack Architectural Heritage group, and they are housed in a historic building surrounded by many others. The river runs right through the town and produces some spectacular rapids. The Hollywood Theater exemplifies the “frozen in time” look of the place. It’s right off the NY Thruway, so drop in if you are ever flying through. The pleasure of this drive only increased as we passed through Wilmington and beneath Whiteface Mountain, a substantial mountain with multiple ski runs. This town is full of resorts and quasi-rustic motels that seemed quite well maintained; if I return to this area I would likely avail myself of their attractions. The only strange thing about the route is the near-complete lack of any place to stop and look over the river and its environs. This speaks to a complete lack of imagination on the part of New York Lake Placid itself seems more like an Alpine village than a piece of Americana. We walked along the edge of Mirror Lake and then up and down most of the main drag, lined with restaurants and shops. We even bought a tchotchke (photo to follow.) Dinner was at Lake Placid Pub and Brewery, a funky establishment on a side street. The food and brew were both excellent, which can not always be said about pubs, especially when it comes to the dining fare.

What was not so nice were the screaming kids. This lead me to think about their behavior; I reached the conclusion that the youngsters were merely imitating their elders. Bring a kid into a restaurant with chaotic noise and music pounding away, and their inclination will be to do what most of us do, which is to raise our voices to be heard. I decided that it is a bit sadistic to bring a child into this setting and then expect them to ‘behave.’ Given that the service was languid, the experience was drawn out, and until the food arrived and little mouths were stuffed, the shrieks and screams were periodically emitted. Fortunately the feeding calmed them down; you’d think we’d hate the place, but the opposite is true. And this is the best beer I’ve had since leaving “the real” Portland!