This One Has Pictures!

For spring break, most people would go south, down to a place with sun and sand, like Lake Placid, Florida. Me, I went up north, up to a place with snow and ice, in Lake Placid, New York. It sounds unusual, but apparently I wasn't the only one.


When possible on Frosty Chocolate Milkshakes, I try to mask people's identities by using their screen name or other internet identity. But alas, neither my gracious host nor my intrepid travelling companion have suitable pseudonyms, and it would confuse me to refer to them as A and B. So, since neither of them are likely to read this anyway, I'll tell you that Berkey and I went to Lake Placid to visit Adelle. You either know them or you don't, and names won't change that. Moving along.

Last Friday, I flew from Pittsburgh to Philly, where Berkey picked me up and we headed north. Lake Placid is a pretty little town, but it's way the heck in the middle of nowhere. If you've ever seen a cartoon where someone is driving along a snowy mountain cliff only to slide into a guard rail which snaps them back onto the road, that's roughly what the last hour of the trip was like. Nevertheless, we made such good time, we were there in time for dinner, which we had at a restaurant called the Downhill Grill. The bobsled in the parking lot leads me to believe the name of the restaurant just might be related to winter sports.

The next morning we went to see the Olympic ski jumps. There was a competition for 10 to 12 year olds while we where there, but they were on the smaller jumps. These two would be the big'uns.



You have a take a ski lift to the top of the mountain, and then an elevator to the top of the jump. A lot of winter sports seem cool to me, but there is no way I'd want to be going down one of these babies at 60 mph.



After testing our senses of vertigo at the top of the ski jumps, we went to Whiteface Mountain to watch the finals of the World Cup Snowboarding half pipe. Chevrolet was a major sponsor of the event, so they had a big display of cars up on the mountain. While Berkey talked to the Chevy guy, Adelle and I went over to the Paul Mitchell tent because Adelle wanted to score some free shampoo. Lindsay Jacobellus was there signing autographs, so the line was too long to grab any hair care products, but I saw my first Olympic athlete. When we got back to the Chevy display, the guy gave us all free hats, which was cool. Free is my favorite price. After that, the half pipe started, so we climbed a little more of the mountain to go watch it. I took tons of pictures to try to get a good shot, but my camera is slow and professional snowboarders are fast. This is the best I could do.



I enjoyed seeing this event because I play several snowboarding video games and it was interesting to see which moves are actually possible in real life. It turns out that most of these moves actually can be done, although if competitors in the World Cup sometimes fall on their faces while attempting them, I'm guessing they're pretty dang hard to pull off. I should learn how to snowboard so I can see for myself though. I believe this event will be shown on NBC on March 26, so check your local listings. You can watch it and think, "Wow, I know someone who was standing not all that far behind the cameras!" Somehow, we all managed to get sunburned while standing there. I generally don't remember to put on sunscreen when I know I'm going to be standing ankle deep in snow, and I paid for it with a nice red line across the back of my neck and face.

Later that night was the finals of the World Cup Snowboarding quarter pipe. But first there was a concert by the North Mississippi All-Stars featuring Grace Potter. The music might have been good, but it was mind-blowingly loud. I don't think the guy controlling the sound equipment realized that the sound was actually bouncing off the giant pile of snow that made up the quarter pipe and reflecting back into the audience's ears. When they were finally done playing, the quarter pipe started. Since it was only a quarter of a pipe, the snowboarders were towed by snowmobiles to build up speed. Once they got up to about 40 mph, they let go of the tow line, shot up the pipe and did some tricks. Some of them were incredibly cool, although I found out how poor my knowledge of snowboarding terminology is. In the three seconds it takes to perform a trick, I just can't see the difference between a Rodeo 7 and a 720 Method. I'm learning though.

The next morning was the primary reason for the entire trip: Berkey and I went bobsledding on the Olympic bobsled track. This is apparently a fairly large tourist attraction as there were a ton of people there waiting for their passenger bobsled rides. You see, if you're not a trained bobsledder, they tend to not like to put you in control of vital functions such as steering and breaking. They also don't let you start at the top of the run. Apparently some people can black out when the bobsled breaks the 80 mph barrier, so we started in the middle. Our top speed was 50.8 mph.



We finished the run in under 49 seconds, so you can imagine how hard it was to get a clear picture. As things go, the one above is pretty good. If you enlarge it, I'm the one in the dark red helmet, third from the front. The run was like riding an arctic roller coaster. I can see why Olympic bobsledders have to train so much. Aside from getting their push start right, they pretty much have to have the entire track memorzed because if you lean the wrong way during a turn, you really get slammed around. Plus, it hurts your time. So, Olympic bobsledders, I salute you. But you've got a really fun job.

The next day, we checked out all of the Olympic ice rinks. Lake Placid hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1980. The 1932 rink is often open for public ice skating, so we went, and now I can say I've skated at an Olympic venue. The outdoor speed oval is also often open for public skating, but that was where they'd held the snowboarding quarter pipe. So aside from the fact that the ice was melting in the 40+ degree temperature and rain, there was also giant pile of snow in the middle and no one could skate there. There are multiple ice rinks there, of course, and if you know anything about the Winter Olympics, hockey, or Lake Placid, you may have heard about this thing they call "The Miracle on Ice". It's a pretty big deal in Lake Placid, so much so that they have a museum dedicated to the US hockey team's victory over the Soviets. Actually, there was more to the museum than that, but The Miracle on Ice was the focus. And this is the rink where it happened.



Looks pretty much like every other hockey rink I've ever seen, but being a tourist, I had to take a picture of it.

Another little known fact about Lake Placid, or at least little known to me, is that John Brown, he of abolitionist and raid on Harper's Ferry fame, is buried there. I have no idea how or why his body managed to make it up to Lake Placid after he was hanged, but it did, and we visited his grave.



For anyone thinking about moving to Lake Placid, I have to throw in a plug for the local school system. I mean, who wouldn't want to send their children to an elementary school with a playground like this?



I wish I had this in my back yard. Although if I were going to build one, I'd make it a little larger. Some of those passages were a little tight. (Yes, we played at the playground.) Good times.

This doesn't cover everything we did, but I'm still sorting through my pictures, so there may or may not be a sequel to this post. We'll just have to see. In the mean time, I'm going to go play some snowboarding video games so I can figure out what a frontside Misty is.