Lakes Road Trip 2019: Headed to NY (Crown Point, Ticonderoga, Albany and West Nyack)

We set out for our last day of vacation (Friday, 7/19) on the early side and started making our way into NY. We made a short stop just over the lake to see Crown Point. Two different forts were built here by colonists because of its strategic location at the narrows of Lake Champlain. The first Fort Saint Frederic was built by the French, who retreated and destroyed their fort to keep it out of the hands of the British during the 7 years war. The second, Fort Crown Point was built by the British and eventually captured by the colonists during the Revolutionary War. The remains of both forts still stand:

Cool bridge over the narrows sits behind the ruins of Fort Frederic

Part of the ruins of Fort Crown Point

Closer look at the French ruins

Although the fort was super cool, we only spent a little time there because we wanted to get on to Ticonderoga. We ended up getting to Ticonderoga on the early side, though, and had a little time to explore before the main attraction. We went looking for sites related to the pencil company and found this - the falls Dixon-Ticonderoga used to power their original mill (and interpretive sign):

And bonus covered bridge in the same park

It was finally time to head over to the Star Trek set, which had been the impetus for this leg of the trip:

Even the outside was cool:

shuttlecraft recreated

 

I really liked this miniature of the sets that included the officers

The gift shop:

Benji found some tribbles, to his amusement (we had the kids watch The Trouble with Tribbles the night before in preparation, so this was perfect)

Original uniforms

Even the sign on the bathroom was awesome

The actual sets were fantastic! Just like being on the show, and the tour guide had lots of interesting behind the scenes information:

Sick Bay

Benji got to be the one to set off a Red Alert

Conference Room

McCoy's Office

Captain Kirk's quarters

Engineering

Warp core

Turbolift onto the bridge

The bridge

We all took a turn in the captain's chair

Benji at Mr Spock's science consul

We got moving a little before lunch and made it to Lake George before stopping to eat. We made one last stop on the trip home - Albany! Having seen so many state houses on the trip, Abby was committed to at least getting a peek at this one. We decided to park and walk around it for a few minutes, but not take a tour:

We made it to West Nyack for dinner, after a stop in Middletown to visit with Uncle Art and Aunt Tina. We had a relaxing day on Saturday, topped off with a family birthday celebration for Abby and Kevin's birthdays (complete with Pop-pop's pasta):

Abby got a card from Harper

Harper, enjoying her birthday cupcake while Uncle Kevin looks on

Birthday girl with Grandma and Pop-pop

On Sunday morning, we headed home (at long last)!