Ausable Chasm.

This is a map I drew for Nini to show her where we were going to go for our walk on the Champlain Lake beach. One of many ways to keep the girls involved in our family road trips.

Have you ever decided to go somewhere and realized you weren't the only ones with this idea? Last Saturday, we decided to stay in Montreal and head to Jean Drapeau Park which is located on the Ste. Helene island next to Montreal (which is also an island) in the St. Lawrence (fr. St. Laurent) River. There is only one road that leads to the island; our car along with 1,000's of other cars all wanted to go to the same place. We waited for an hour and a half, but realizing we had only gone three blocks, we bailed. We decided to head home and try again next week.

This week we headed out earlier and decided on going to Ausable Chasm to take the girls for a little gentle rafting. However, again, we weren't the only ones wanting to leave Montreal as it is a long holiday weekend and everyone seemed to have the same idea that we did - Everyone wanted to cross the border into New York. The photo above is the US 87 border, which would have taken us at least three hours to go through - yikes. So we scrammed 10km or less to the next border crossing and it would have been over an hour. So we, turned around, passed the 87 checkpoint and headed 10km to the next checkpoint - and 30 minutes later we were in New York.

We stopped at this Carsana's Deli in Plattsburgh, NY for sandwiches and the best cookies I've ever, had - seriously - ever. They were so good. Here's a picture of the peanut butter, chip, cup cookies. Wow, so good. They also had raspberry filled cookies (eaten, by me, before I could take a picture) and smore cookies.

We ate at the Cumberland Head State Park, next to Lake Champlain. Thanks to several BBQs around the park, we were able to take another spontaneous family photo!

Ausable Chasm

I just love places like this. You would never know based on viewing the landscape that something as unique as this was hiding among the trees and rolling hills. I am so fascinated by the changing terrain each area has to offer. It is a perfect tourist stop, with a gift shop and eatery/snack bar, including ice cream and slushes. It seemed to cost quite a bit more than I'm used to paying for seeing nature, but the land, trails, and rafting system in place were clean and efficient. I felt it was especially good for young children, as the trails were all equipped with railings, and fences to keep little ones from falling.

The raft system they have in place is very interesting to watch and the girls had a great time watching the raft come down from the cliff through the pulley system. The rafting itself was very calm, perfect for first time rafters. I enjoyed the rafting between the cliffs! The rafting guide was only on his third day, so we really didn't go very fast and even got stuck on some rocks! After getting out of the raft, you could either hike back two miles or take the bus. We wanted to hike but it was 3:45 and the park closed at 4:00. We're fast hikers - but not that fast!

It's more than 80 feet deep through these cliffs.

Nini unfortunately got a sliver during our hike, before we loaded the rafts. To make this very long dramatic sliver story short, we finally were able to get it out, but not before trying to do it on the way home while sleeping. She's much too smart for us and woke-up, very traumatic - poor thing.

We drove past this so quickly we had to turn around and see exactly what we had missed. It's rare you find ruins like this in the US, especially with an officially historical sign next to it. It's of Robinson's Tavern 1825, visited by President James Monroe. We just loved the ivy growing over it, very interesting and we're glad we made the effort to go back and take a look.

I have several more pictures to show, but am having difficulty downloading them to my photobucket account. Will try again, or post more pics later.

If you might recall, I used the "Git Award" once before for this post. I had to award this to myself once again for the following: For about 10 days now, I've been tearing the house up side down to find my sunglasses. I thought for sure they had gone the way of other missing pairs until yesterday. While driving on Highway 87, Craig chimed suddenly, "Are those your sunglasses?", I said "Where?". "Right there!", he said again pointing to the windshield in front of him. This is when my memory as to where I had placed my sunglasses, and why I had reasoned to put them there - all came flooding back. For ten days, it had been sitting right in front of me everytime I drove anywhere! We pulled off to the side of the road, grabbed my sunglasses (still in tacked) and continued on our journey!

Click HERE if you would like to see more pics!