Lake Placid and tips for xc-skiing with twins!

Our family is a large advocate of day trips and seeing as much as we can see in the area we live. We are currently residing in Montreal, QC for the next three years. With temps down to -25 degrees, it's cold! However, we have embraced the cold, the snow, and the freezing wind to introduce our girls to some winter sports. We headed to Lake Placid, NY on a Thursday night so we could be ready Friday morning for a full day of outdoor activities.

Home of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics, the town of Lake Placid is really cute. It's odd seeing so many attractions in such a tiny town, but you feel in the thick of things, with shops and restaurants and lots to do. One of the first things you notice is the speed skating track where Eric Heiden won his five gold medals. It's still active track open to anyone who wants to skate. It's right in front of the town's High School and during recess you'll see the high school kids skating! We stayed at a nice lodge style hotel on Lake Mirror. Lake Mirror is in downtown Lake Placid, and the actually Lake is more to the north of the town.

Our first activity was sledding at the local golf course. It's obvious that golf wouldn't be an option, so during the winter months the course is open to cross-country skiers and sledding. When we lived in Utah, we had taken the girls down a few small hills, but this was the first time they could do it by themselves. It didn't take any time for both to jump on the sled and swoosh down. It was the coming up that was the largest issue.
The next activity was dog sledding. The sled had 6-8 dogs and they led us over the frozen Mirror Lake. It was about $30 for all of us.

That same day we hit the skating track with the girls. There were lots of professional skaters (or at least people who had been on skates more than twice). The cone attached to my daughter was quite the impediment for Craig. She wanted to go around the track with him, but refused to leave the cone.

The next day was all about learning to cross-country ski. While Craig had already mastered cross-country, the girls and I were first timers on ski's; and while Craig went to shoot in the biathlon center, he left me with the girls to teach them to use their ski's. Trial and error, here are five tips for xc-skiing with twins:

TIP#1 Leave the poles behind, you'll just end of carrying yours and theirs.
TIP#2 If they both fall at the same time, don't laugh, they'll just keep doing it! Over and over again!
TIP#3 If they fall more than five times in two minutes - don't pick them back up again-it's time to get off your ski's and carry both of them back to the lodge.
TIP#4 The frightened scream/giggle you might do when you've never gone down hill on xc-ski's before, can be blamed on the twins - one is screaming, the other giggling.
TIP#5 Don't go by yourself!

All told, we left on a Thursday night and returned on Sunday. A little longer than our usual day trips, but we needed the break. What is your favorite day trip?