Dancin' down them dirty, dusty trails...: Family Road Trip through the Adirondacks

We welcome you to our family road trip post!

Quote atop
Whiteface Mountain

Every Memorial Day, my family goes up to the Catskills in upstate New York to kick off the summer. This year, in honor of it being the year my dad turns 60 (whoa!), we all took some extra days off to take a family road trip up to the Adirondacks. Adirondack Park is as big as Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks combined. It consist of 46 mountain peaks (highest is Mt. Marcy at 5,344), lakes, and canyons; and it is a great place to hike, canoe, swim, ski, zipline, and whatever else your outdoorsy heart desires!

My dad has been wanting to see Ausable Chasm for years, so I did some research on the towns we could drive through, mountains we could hike and drive up, and sites we could visit on our way to the Grand Canyon of the East! This post has photos of the stops we made, and I will make separate posts about our fantastic hike on Cascade Mountain, as well as our day spent exploring Ausable Chasm.

Cohoes Falls

First stop: Cohoes Falls in the city of Cohoes, about a 16 minute drive north of Albany. The Falls are complete with a park you can walk around, and when the falls are not so heavy you can get really close to them. A great first stop after an over 3 hour drive from Brooklyn.

Stretching and posing

Look alike contest

Saratoga Springs

Saratoga Springs is a small city in upstate New York complete with a famous race track, spas due to the mineral springs, and a performing arts center that is the summer host of the New York City Ballet, the Philadelphia Orchestra, among other companies.

Ballet Slipper sculptures all over town!

Been noticing these sick cars more and more these days.

My mama used to dance ballet. What a diva!

They just don't make buildings like this anymore.

Wishing I never gave up on the flourishing ballet career I started at age 28.

Also! Lots of horse sculptures due to the race track.

This one is for Kim, because I forgot to text it to her 2 months ago.

Congress Park in Saratoga Springs was a great place to relax and watch the local people hang out.

Lake George

Our last stop of Day 1 was Lake George, where we walked around, ate a pretty crummy dinner, and then found a campground to sleep in! My family had never stayed at a campground so I was super excited to share this special experience with them.

The back seat in my dad's van can be made into a bed for chillaxing during long drives.

Savva and I slept in the tent, parents in the car.

The Wild Center & The Wild Walk

The Wild Center is a natural history museum in Tupper Lake, NY. It is special because it has live exhibits and live animals, a giant recreated glacial wall, a floating interactive planet earth, a pond and river, and 31 acres of hiking trails. It is such a cool museum, and I encourage everyone to go there when/if they are in the area! I read about this place because of one of it's main attractions: The Wild Walk. The Wild Walk was compared to New York City's Highline Park, but in the Adirondacks. It is a network of bridges that allow you to perch in a recreated eagle's nest, get caught in a spider web, and walk inside a tree. It is probably more fun for families with small kids, but I still had a blast hoping around and seeing views of the mountains in the distance.

The Wild Center

Floating Earth, Pretty Mama.

And then the Earth turned into the Moon.

Caution: Drive slow if you're in moose territory,
their eye level is higher than deer and won't reflect your headlights!
(Don't you love museums that teach you something you can apply?)

Antler people

Three bear cubs <3

This dude is turning 60 this year!

Part of The Wild Walk

The Wild Walk

Eagle's nest

Eagle eye view of Whiteface Mountain

Caught in the web!

Lake Placid, NY
It is slightly confusing when you are in the center of the town of Lake Placid, looking at a body of water called Mirror Lake. We did not visit any of the Olympic sites but they were in plain sight all over.

Mirror Lake

Mirror Lake - That church reminded me of a Thai wat from this angle

My lovely parents

Get me outta here!

Adirondack Mountains and can you spot the ski jump??

Great breakfast spot: Farmhouse Cafe on Main St.

Cascade Mountain

On Day 3 we hiked to 4,098 feet on Cascade Mountain as our family's first ever Adirondacks hike! More on this hike if you click here.

Whiteface Mountain

At the end of our Cascade Mountain hike, it started pouring rain, so we hopped in the car and drove up Whiteface Mountain (4,865'). It was gloomy, beautiful, and such a visual contrast from the epic views of the Adirondacks that we just experienced.

Bodies of water peaking out

Creep family

Ausable Chasm

Day 4, the storm passed, and we finally made it to Ausable Chasm (5 hours north of Brooklyn, and just 45 minutes from the Canadian border). This place was absolutely stunning and deserved a post of it's own - which you can read if you click here.