Plattsburgh, NY (Lake Champlain)

As we had not yet explored Vermont or the Lake Champlain areas, we decided to add a stop on the New York side of the Lake in order to see them both this year. We started off with a trip into Vermont. One of the highlights for us was the ferry ride across the lake. Lake Champlain is long but narrow and you can save a lot of driving time by taking the ferry out of Plattsburgh. We visited the mountain ski town of Stowe, Quechee Gorge, Burlington and stopped to check out the capitol building in Montpelier. Vermont has very few people living in the state and the majority of what we saw was dense forest and rolling hills with a few small mountains. While in Stowe we took the Toll Road drive up to the top of the ski mountain. The top of the ski hill is 3600 feet, but climate at that elevation in this area is arctic tundra. I hiked up to the top for some pictures and to watch the storm clouds move through the area. Our final activity was a drive around Lake Champlain. The views and scenery from the road was in general better from the Vermont side, for those who plan to do the same drive. The Canadian border intersects the north end of the lake, so we had to go see the closed border crossings. What we did not expect to find is a series of markers identifying the location of the border right along the edge of the road and a corn field. I visited Canada by stepping across and taking a couple of pictures.