Today was our last morning in Montreal. We had another breakfast at the cafe attached to our hotel. It was just ok.
Before leaving the city, we walked around the neighborhood a bit in search of souvenirs. We didn’t find any, but we did find some more beer to buy. Running alcoholic beverage bottle count: 11. Gifts: Big fat zero. We just couldn’t find any souvenir shops. It was raining (yep, I used the bubble again!) so we didn’t really want to go too far.
We left Montreal and headed back to the Etas Unis (United States.) We had to wait an unbearably long time (ok, well at least a half hour) in the line to get back into the country. And our gas gauge was dropping and dropping. I was so nervous that we would run out of gas in the line, and we’d have to push the car to the shoulder, in front of everyone waiting to get across the border, and the Canadian Mounties and the American Border Patrol would come out with giant weapons and yell at us and detain us in a room with no windows or AC, thinking we were up to no good and trying to smuggle Canadians or Tylenol with codeine into the country, and all the while our chocolate would be melting and our wine would be overheating in our abandoned car. I was thinking about the call I’d have to make to my parents (um, Mom, can you bring us a gallon of gas? I’m at the Canadian/American border and I’m in trouble.) And our cell phones didn’t even work at that point, so I was going to have to call collect. But luckily, we made it through without a problem, and our border patrol man was nice and let us through with only one question (man: “whose car is this?” Larry: “my wife’s.” man: “oh, the boss’s car.” Yes, that’s right.) We rolled into a gas station on the US side just as the gas light lit up. Phew.
We made it to Lake Placid, New York without any incidents. Lake Placid is a beautiful town, with such scenic mountains and trees. (Little Known Fact [or maybe well known to everyone but me]: Lake Placid is also a past Olympic Games town, just like Montreal.) I think there are more log homes per square mile here than anywhere else on earth. Our hotel is great, and we have a balcony with a beautiful view of the mountains. We walked around Main Street and did a little bit of shopping. I was attacked by a bear:
We ate dinner at the Lake Placid Brewery, where we sampled their six beers:
We drove around and enjoyed the sights, and stopped off for ice cream at the Misty Mountain Ice Cream Stand. Now we are in the hotel room (yay for wireless internet) trying to decide if we should drive the scenic highway to the top of Whiteface Mountain tomorrow, or if we should take a gondola ride to the top. Or both. Or if we should go tubing in the Ausable Chasm. We’ll update you tomorrow and let you know what we chose!
Bon soir.