Sunday, June 7th

Upstate

Even though I hadn’t seen any of it yet, Burlington sat by the shores of rather large Lake Champlain. The lake ran north to south for more than a hundred miles, forming a formidable barrier with Burlington roughly at its centre. There were bridges at the northern and southern entrances and three ferry links between. I decided I had used enough ferries for one trip and set off towards the southern bridge.

After crossing the motorway, I climbed up a hill that provided a generous campus for University of Vermont, mostly lawn with a few not buildings thrown in that weren’t too ugly for university structures. Down the other side, the street entered into Burlington proper before finally ending at the lake shores. I, however, didn’t have to go that far as the southbound highway turned left about halfway down the hill. It ventured through a residential area of affluent villas in little parks, added a few four-way stops for good measure before leaving town through the usual commercial frenzy.

But it wasn’t time to relax just yet as Shelburne followed right next. It consisted mainly of a giant park between road and lake riddled with old houses and, today, an selection of really old, early twentieth century cars. This was Shelburne Museum which this weekend had staged an Auto Festival.

Finally, out of town and back in busy farm land with many a store for local produce by the road. There even were a few wineries. Off in the distance both left and right and roughly equally far away were mountain ranges. The one to the left I had been to yesterday, the one to the right was on the menu for today.

I left the southbound highway and, passing its former railway station, entered Vergennes. A factory and the police station occupied opposing sides of the road, followed by a lazy string of homes before arriving at the town centre. It had a big old department store, now offices it seemed, a church, a park, a court house, and a traffic light. Like most towns around here, down a hill after and across a river dam. Exiting up a hill with views across an endless sea of tree tops to the right, seemingly all the way to the mountains.

Down again soon, the landscape became utterly flat. Farming was at its peak with some farms having three grain silos. It seemed as if the lake had been larger once. The bridge over a narrow at the present day lake was a big steel bridge. Below, the lake seemed rather bored. After, the Union Jack was flying over the remains of an old fort, Crown Point Historic Site.

I hadn’t just entered the state of New York but also Adirondack Park, a twenty-four thousand square kilometre state park covering most of the northern part of the state and encompassing the Adirondack Mountains. As was proper for a park, all direction signs switched from green to brown.

For the moment, the landscape was still flat. Soon, though, the road hit the toes of the mountain range. It turned north, running along the sudden start of the mountains that soon was to become the lake shore. I took the first opportunity to climb up into the range and turned west again. The initial climb lead me to Moriah through four consecutive cemeteries, the last one being really big. Perhaps that had a vampire problem in this area.

Then into the mountains for real along a narrow road. Even though the valley started out rather wide, the road went for a madly winding course right away. It crossed a stream on a one-lane bridge, protected by traffic lights and many a warning sign, and the valley narrowed dramatically. Soon it widened again to make room for a little lake filled with tree stumps and water plants. Narrow again, then wide again for another lake and a little settlement.

The fun drive ended abruptly at a wider and much calmer north-south highway. I left it again quickly, turning west, passing under the Interstate motorway. At the exit stood a large abandoned wooden building, cathedral-like, tall central part with single-storey attachments. It might have been a church once or a motorway rest stop.

The road follows a river valley. The river turns into rapids, spawning a little settlement. The houses by the road continue for a while but eventually the power line ends and wilderness ensues. The road remains wide and relatively straight, though, but wonderfully empty.

After some time it arrives at Newcomb, a near endless village by the roadside. It crosses a river confusingly labelled both ‘The Hudson’ and ‘Source of the Hudson’ and passes by the head of a trail up to the assuringly named Goodnow Mountain. The really tall mountains are a little off to the right, though. I will only pass by them today.

At the hamlet of Long Lake, the quiet road finally merges with a main route up from the south. The village consists of a collection of homes, outside one of which a dog crosses the road carelessly in front of my car. He cannot be blamed, though, for he was wearing one of them cones and couldn’t really see a thing.

The street goes on, past the library, a bank, the town hall doubling as the fire station. It heads straight for the lake and only turns left at the last moment. It goes on straight, too, as a boat ramp right into the lake. That should teach the sleepy driver.

Around the bend is a large, three-storey wooden hotel in green on the left side of the road and the lake on the right with a park for its shores. A red steel bridge takes me across the lake’s entrance, out of town and into mountain wilderness again. As it is Sunday, this main road is quite busy. Twenty miles and it leads to Tupper Lake, a larger, rather dusty town. This may have been because the entire centre currently was engulfed in road construction. There also was the eponymous lake, a somewhat swampy affair.

Being a larger town, there were plenty of traffic lights and, being in the state of New York, they were all red. Waiting, my gaze fell onto the thermometer. It was a little over seventy degrees and really quite warm. For the moment, the sky was overcast but the sun was to return soon.

I left Tupper Lake westbound behind a group of bikers. Following them, I couldn’t quite understand how this mode of travel could be any fun. For the entire day you are listening to the rattling noise of your engine. These guys idled along at low speeds, too. So none of the thrill that bikers seemed to look for in European mountains. But then, also less work for emergency services.

My intention had been to turn north towards a town called Potsdam at the first opportunity. Sadly everyone and their bike seemed to have had the same idea. The map suggested that with only a little detour I could reach Potsdam along narrow county routes. The turn-off should have been shortly after Cranberry Lake, another small community with its very own lake, but either the atlas had overpromised or the signage was particularly bad. There was no road anywhere. Luckily, there was an alternative to the alternative, even if the detour grew a few miles. This road was signed and after crossing a rather wide river, I was off into the wonderful world of cheap roads again.

The road signs returned to their more customary green and, thanks to much improved directions, I eventually arrived back at the main highway a couple of miles outside of Potsdam. It was still annoyingly busy.

Potsdam started with the State University of New York’s College, yet another green campus of hideously tasteless architecture. Some of the buildings were halfway overgrown by ivy which improved them immensely. The town itself was reasonably pretty. A big courthouse had been built from red stone, not brick, with the roof sides and large pillars painted in white. I circled the town two, three times in search of somewhere to buy a post card, but everything promising seemed closed on a Sunday.

So, onwards instead. Since county road navigation had worked so well, I tried some more. Out of town, this gave me time to look at the landscape. This was farmland again: some trees and bushes but mostly fields and meadows, grain silos and dust roads. It all was rather but not too hilly. Perhaps this was best summarized as the East of the Mississippi Standard Landscape (or EMSL for acronym-obsessed America).

I crossed through Madrid, then Lisbon, smelling a theme. It seemed I was the only car on these roads that wasn’t a pickup or some farming implement. Soon enough the road dumped me back onto the main highway at exactly the spot I had wanted it to.

I caught a glimpse of a river to the right and then the outline of a huge bridge. The river was non other than the St. Lawrence, forming the border between New York and Ontario here for a while before becoming the heart of Quebec. This side of the river was Ogdensburg. It started rather well with a Psychiatric Facility and a Correctional Center before turning into a quite country town with a surprisingly small amount of businesses.

I already had given up hope to spend the night here and submitted to a one hour drive onwards to Watertown where there was an Interstate and with it surely hotels, when I spotted a number of motels directly by the river just outside of town. I pondered the idea for a while, then turned around and picked one of them.

And pick well I did. The motel had its own little boat launch by the river, complete with a pavilion and deckchairs on the jetty. It was still warm and sunny and so I spend the evening writing by the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Canada on the other side, the sound of the busy Toronto to Montreal train line wafting across.