The Good Lake

My oldest daughter spent her first two years of college on the shores of Lake Champlain, a large, black body of water that inhabits a vast expanse between New York, Vermont and Quebec. Not only is Lake Champlain large by regional standards, it’s the main topic of a great deal of local debate.

Many of the “Champlainers” who live along its shores consider Lake Champlain the sixth great lake, albeit a runt among peers. The other five Great Lakes are much fatter and longer, difficult to miss on any map of North America. Lake Champlain most likely would be a mere footnote on that same map, so it’s difficult to make a case for Champlain on size alone. Still, the disciples of Champlain’s greatness persist in their efforts to add their lake to the troupe of greater Lakes Michigan, Ontario and their sister lakes.

Unfortunately, the bureaucratic classifiers of lakes refuse to categorize Lake Champlain officially as a Great Lake, presumably relegating it to only a “good lake”. And I must admit, to my ear the evidence supports the good lake line of reasoning.

I loved to visit Lake Champlain and the water's edge town of Plattsburgh where my daughter Lauren spent her first two years of college. The only obstacle getting to the good Lake Champlain from Rochester, interestingly enough, was the gigantic Adirondack Park.

The shortest, most picturesque and, many travelers say, enjoyable path from Rochester to the good Lake Champlain is a two lane highway directly through Adirondack Park, from the southwest corner to the northeast corner, the breadth of the largest park, state or national, in the contiguous US. Roughly six million acres of land and one thousand lakes in all.

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Several years ago I had a noteworthy adventure at the expense of my daughter and the Good Lake...True Story

Experts recommend that when traveling by car during the winter, it’s prudent to take extra precautions in case a mishap leaves you stranded, isolated in cold weather conditions. They suggest that blankets, boots, hats, gloves, shovels and extra food should be included alongside the everyday essentials stashed in your car.

I figure that an extra coat and a candy bar will do nicely for my leisurely six-hour pleasure trip to Plattsburgh.

My daughter is packed and ready for Christmas break. Although she’s six hours away in Plattsburgh, I can imagine her sitting on the edge of her bed and I hear her tapping foot inside my head. I detour from the office to pick up the extra coat and candy bar at home, hardly listening to the radio snarl about a snowy prediction spinning toward Rochester. Since I’m headed in the opposite direction, I convince myself the extra coat and a candy bar is more than enough preparation. Warm shafts of winter sun are passing through my windshield, warming my hands on the steering wheel. For Rochester in mid-December, it’s a decidedly good omen as far as I’m concerned.

I reach the New York Thruway about 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon and grind out the first two hours through western New York’s occasionally green farmland; now asleep, uncovered and brown from frost, lying contentedly along the northern edge of the Finger Lakes. Fueled by coffee, loud music and arrogance, I’m five miles over the speed limit and just two hours from Adirondack Park, making pretty good time.

Within a mile of the official Adirondack Park border, as if by fiat, snow is heaped in the underbrush. By the time I officially pass over the threshold to the park and onto a two-lane road, snow is stacked twelve inches high near the trunks of winter’s bald birches and shaggy firs. I put in at Old Forge, the unofficial snowmobile capital of New York and official door to the Adirondack Mountains.

The countryside is coated with snowmobiles, some racing around like insects in noisy swarms. Others cruise in slow lines, showing off like hot rods coasting the main drag on a Saturday night. Everything from custom painted shells atop yellow fluorescent front spring suspensions to delicate sporty coupes with fancy nameplates.

I’m driving the only four-wheeled vehicle within sight and suddenly, I’m collecting stares from all the snowmobile drivers and passengers within gawking distance. I feel embarrassingly conspicuous, as if I’ve schmoozed around a party for an hour only to have the host delicately inform me my fly is open.

I slink into Gas Town behind a group of snowmobilers who are following a Barbie pink sled driven by a precisely pink rider masked in a head-to-toe pink snowsuit, matching boots and pink helmet. I park my four-wheeler as far from the snowmobiles lining up at the gas pumps as I can, retrieve my second coat from the back seat and pull the hood over my head in a miserable attempt to blend in.

The inside of the Gas Town Quick Mart looks disheveled and smells like Twinkies. A display of windshield washer fluid marked “clearance” is leaning precariously, about to tip. In its own display, prominent on the left, some bags of potato chips sit sideways while others sit upright above the rest, like an anxious young hand raised to be chosen first.

“Looks like a busy night.” The clerk I’m speaking to looks up from the combination gas pump controller/cash register he’s punch-starting long enough to take me in before going back to the keys. He steals a quick glance out the window at the pumps before returning to the machine to silence a couple irksome beeps.

“You frum outta town?” he asks. Before I can answer he jabs me again, “Were always this busy at Snowfest, s‘ar biggest holiday nexta Christmas. You got ‘a sled and ‘a costume?”

“No, actually, I’m just passing through on my way to Plattsburgh.” I’m anxious to end the banter that seems to be going nowhere I want to go, since I really could care less about sleds and Barbie costumes.

“Man, you got ‘a long haul ahead ‘a ya. Better gas up, there ain’t much between here and there this time ‘a year.”

I’m relieved he doesn’t look up and notice the blood draining from my face. “Yeah, I might as well top off my tank. But, I’ve made this trip in the winter before, it’s not bad,” I lie. “Is there a pump for cars?”

“Nope. Just pull in behind them four guys dressed like clowns”, he snickers. “Wanna prepay, or use ‘a credit card at the pump?” he asks, finally looking up at me again.

“No, I’ll use my card. Thanks. Do you have any fresh coffee?” Which is why I bothered stopping here in the first place.

“Nope. Just beer and pop. In the cooler over there behind the chips and stuff.” He pokes a greasy finger in the general direction of the chip display before being recalled to the keypad by another beep.

I pull my car in behind the clowns. Beer and clowns on snowmobiles doesn’t sound like a healthy combination to me.

Ten miles out of out of Old Forge the snow is moose-hock deep and shadows have sucked away any leftover daylight. My headlights chase the curves and hills of the road but every time the lights catch up, the road runs off in a new direction. Fortunately, the road is clear and dry and I meander through the curves and up and down rises with an easy sense of confidence. Oddly, whenever I near one of the numerous unseen lakes I remember from previous trips, a mysterious fog envelopes the car for a few seconds, then quickly melts away.

Yellow reflective deer signs are whizzing by regularly. The ones with a large antlered buck leaping toward the side of your car. Vandals often take it upon themselves to make the buck appear “anatomically correct”, making the thought of colliding with one of these beasts even less appealing. The leaping deer signs become interspersed with signs depicting an odd looking, large and blocky pedestrian.

I sit bolt upright with fear when it dawns on me what these signs portend. As if a leaping buck is not enough to be concerned about, rounding a curve at fifty miles an hour, I might freeze a five hundred pound blocky pedestrian in my headlights. I hit the brakes as I round the next curve and take a direct hit from a second bolt of terror.

Black ice, the bane of winter driving. Daytime snowmelt-turned water that stealthily finds the low spot in the road and freezes into a sheet of nearly invisible ice by night. I picture my four-wheeled sled losing traction, careening over the hill and plunging to the bottom of some uncharted prehistoric crevasse. I’ll never be found; or worse, I’ll be discovered by a ravenous carnivore or an amorous black bear on break from hibernation to satisfy pent-up carnal urges.

My brain is roiling with dull-witted visions of dangerous, unfamiliar creatures. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen another car for about thirty minutes. I’m alone in the middle of nowhere. A tang of serious concern rises to my nostrils from my open shirt collar. Maybe I should pull over at the next town and collect myself. “Stop it,” I spit. “It’s only another two hours.” “Eat your candy bar.” I think I will.

Another thirty minutes pass. At long last I come upon another car and it’s coming toward me from the opposite direction. The driver seems intent on getting to Old Forge as quickly as possible because the car is speeding along in total disregard for black ice or wandering carnivores. “What a nut. Obviously he hasn’t been paying attention to those idiotic signs.”

Finally...I spy a sign up ahead with words instead of silly images. Welcome to the Hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake. I creep into town, passing through a small bank of fog. There must be a lake nearby. But there are no lights, only signs in windows stating the obvious: Closed for the Season. “What season? Season of ravenous carnivores? Car-jacking black bears?” “What?” Wait, another sign.

You Are Leaving the Hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake. “But, I just got here,” I whine. “The next burgh better damn well be a full ham, with a few permanent residents” The candy bar is one of those half-pound Snickers bars and it tastes like crème brulee.

Presumably in a state of self-induced transcendental hypnosis, I manage to navigate another thirty or forty miles before a ghastly light flashes, triggering an uncontrollable episode of rapid eye blinks before I recover my night vision. “What the hell is that?”

I’ve come over a hill to be greeted by bright mercury lights burning around a dozen or so used cars in a muddy lot. Must be a town. With lights. And a stoplight. And a pedestrian on the corner. An unusually large blocky form wrapped in a bulky coat with a hat pulled down to his eyes. He smiles at me. He appears to have most of his teeth. They’re bright and squared off, unnaturally so. The light turns red. “Damn.” I slow down and stop at the intersection and my hand glides to automatic door lock switch. Click. Sigh. He doesn’t move, so I do. Through the still red light.

The sign ahead reads: Welcome to Saranac Lake “Delighted to be here.” I push through town with a renewed sense of purpose and a distinct feeling I’ve just avoided terrible misfortune. I’m most of the way to Plattsburgh. Another hour to go in the company of many fellow travelers, in four-wheeled sleds just like mine. I honk my horn at a couple just to prove I’m friendly and happy to make their acquaintance.

I break the final crest in the road and fall into the lights from the City of Plattsburgh. The final approach down the hill to the city breaks me into a smile because, through a cut in the lights ahead, there’s a large inky blackness. The good, no, the Great Lake Champlain lies beyond.