Fri July 16: Ft Ticonderoga to North Basin Harbor (Lake Champlain Maritime Museum) mooring ball

In which we learn about creemees ...

Remember how I told you that what we do every day is to just figure out how to live daily life, in a little bit of a more complicated way?  Well today was one of those days.  Rick flossed his crown right off (he's a VERY serious flosser) and we had to find a dentist.  Obvi we don't have a car, so we have to be able to Uber somewhere, or it will have to be in Burlington.  But it was Friday, and most dentist weren't open, and if they were they weren't taking 'new patients'.  So it took a full morning of calls before we were able to set up an apt for Monday in Burlington.  Good thing we have nothing else to do.  Like work.  Which I can't do because, for the first time ever, I don't have a signal.  Even our back-up T-Mobile doesn't have a signal.  Oh well - maybe they will fire me.  Fingers crossed...

As we came into the wider part of Lake Champlain, the variety of greens/blues in the layered mountains on either side just blew me away.  It made me want to immediately learn how to paint from Bob Ross (the 1960s TV guy).

 

Random gull pic.

 

We picked up a mooring ball in a small bay after calling the close by marina, Basin Harbor,  about availability.  They were totally open and other than two small sailboats moored permanently we were the only boaters visiting.  We wanted to stop here so we could visit the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, and the mooring ball put us right in front of their dock.  After lunch we lowered the dinghy and motored over to the museum dock so we could get the lay of the land. 

Maritime Dock

Does anyone read 'Wind in the Willows' anymore?...

We had planned to take an Uber into the small town of Vergennes, VT to get some supplies-  but there were no cars.  That turned out to be for the best as, walking around the area, we came across the most amazing throwback to old style family “summer camps”.   Basin Harbor is just like the Dirty Dancing camp - a 150 year old complex with multiple cabins, restaurants and big waterfront, a golf course and even a small airport.  We walked through the small streets passed wonderful old cottages that must have been there for 50 years or more.  It is clearly a place that you would bring the family, every year, for a week away from the big city.  There were license plates from all over the eastern US.   We walked down to the waterfront to find the marina office and when we told them that we had picked up a mooring ball and asked how much it would be, they said “mooring balls, what mooring balls?”.  It was clearly too confusing for them to deal with so we all agreed to  “forget we were here” and we ended up getting a mooring ball for free.

One of the little cabins.

 

The most important thing was that the camp store introduced us to Creemees!!!!!!.  In Vermont the soft serve ice cream is call a creemee, and they have excellent flavors like maple and black raspberry as well as standard chocolate and vanilla.   OMG - a choc/maple swirl is revelatory!!!

It anyone offers you maple ice cream, just say yes.  Rick didn't 'want one', and so ended up eating half of mine... That's the last time that's going to happen....