Day 38 Wednesday June 5/13 Lake Placid, New York 11855 kms

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Its important to take the time to cherish the simple pleasures along the way. Enjoying a breakfast on the outside deck of a simple bakery with a river directly below. Sunshine, rushing water lapping over smooth rocks and sitting beside a covered bridge, how often is this going to happen.

No particular place to go. So lets just go. West. We left New Hampshire and entered Vermont. If you can picture the Saanich peninsula with 50 "Prairie Inns" along the way plus a winding slow running river and a town made up of a school a general store and a cemetary every 5 minutes. Thats our Vermont so far. Its seems as though it is repetative but never the same.

Bikes, bikes and more bikes. We are seeing more motorcycles along the way. As we continue west Lake Champlain is directly in our way,time for another ferry ride. This time across state lines. In the parking lot waiting for the ferry we hook up with 9 other motorcycles. They inform us of a motorcycle rendevous called "Americade" approximately 3000 bikes located in a place called Lake George about 100 miles from us.

Along the route we have decided to take is a little town called Lake Placid. I am totally stoked about this as it is a piece of history that I can relate to. The home of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. It also hosted the 1932 games but I cant relate to those.(I know some of you can).

Riding into town its hard to believe a town this small could host an event as large as the Olympics. Its hard to imagine the events that I can recall so clearly watching on t.v. actually took place here. As we rode past the ski jumping towers they are only steps from the main road. The speed skating oval where Eric Heiden set history by winning 5 gold metals actually touches the road. The arena that hosted the "Miracle on Ice" is right beside the oval. Unlike the games in Calgary or Vancouver these games were contained in what appears to be an area of only a few blocks and the alpine portion only a couple of miles away. It really is unbelievable.

The timing of our visit is appropriate, its their marathon and half marathon this weekend. Reason to return?

This is also the home of the U.S. Ironman. Not a reason to return!

It has been fun for me explaining some of the events of 1980 to Helli as she was not even aware that the games had been held here.

The town is just one main street with 5 or six blocks of shopping and countless hotels, motels and restaurants. What makes it special (besides the pride and history of hosting the Olympics) is it is located right on the shores of Mirror Lake, with the actual lake of Lake Placid a half mile away.

We checked into our hotel room over looking the lake, and went for a walk about. Their were dozens of bikes parked all round the town. It appears that this is a great day trip from the rally. We took advantage of a beautiful evening to enjoy dinner outside at a little neighbourhood pub. We may have to stay here awhile.

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