The more I travel this country, the more I realize how absolutely beautiful it is. If you have followed us over the years on our many adventures, you would notice how we focus a lot of our vacations around big cities. We have our share of amazing times doing so many things and don't get me wrong, big cities have been great to us. However, one of the most under appreciated parts of this country is small town america. 
Growing up, I used to think I lived in a small town. In a way, I did. But let's be honest...30,000 residents is small for the state of California. Now put Paso Robles, CA in this neck of the woods and it would be the 2nd largest city in Vermont and the 4 largest in New Hampshire and Maine. During some parts of the day, it takes me about an hour and a half to drive to my parents house from Orcutt to Paso Robles. Today, it took us an hour and a half to drive across the entire state of Vermont. Heck...today we even hopped on a boat in New York and ended up in Vermont...and that only took 25 minutes.
Today felt like the quintessential tour of small town USA. We left our hotel after the best nights sleep we have had all trip and after I dominated the hotel's claw machine. After a quick coffee stop, we hit the road for Lake Placid, NY. Now I will be honest, I had done a ton of research on Lake Placid and we were planning on doing a Bobsled ride on the USA Bobsled, Luge, and Skelton training center. Trying to make a reservation before we hit the road, we were disappointed to find out they only did rides on Thursday-Sunday. We decided to check out Lake Placid anyways, and we were so glad we did. We stopped by the bobsled track anyways and got a chance to sit in a real bobsled. I will tell you one thing...my hips are not built for those machines. "Surprisingly uncomfortable" would be the term that I think best fits. As far as the machines themselves, they are surprisingly simple. A couple of levers here and there, a brake, and an aerodynamic design pretty much makes up a bobsled.
We left the Bobsled track and were overcome with awe as we pulled up to the Olympic Ski Jumping facility. Pictures or words cannot describe how high these jumpers start from, how steep their landing area is, and how easy Olympians make it look on television. I was surprised to learn that the ramp, or the area where they leave the ground is not so much a ramp, but more of an end. Basically, there is no ramp that launches them upwards. The ramp ends and the cliff begins. Thus, the lifting of the skis right at liftoff makes more sense now. 
Right nearby, there is the aerial practice, where the ramp does launch you upwards. They don't use the full ski jumps we just toured, but these are no joke either. Here, athletes go down the ramp and perform stunts off a ramp. Since it is summer, they practice this time of year by jumping into a pool, full boots, skis, and adding a life vest. Double back flip after double black flips splashed down and as we watched these athletes, Alyssa was as depressed as a person that realized she missed her true calling. Combining diving and gymnastics (the two sports she competed in) would be the best of both worlds. Of course in winter, they must land on snow, but this seemed like it would be a neat summer olympic sport. After a long debate of how much money it would have taken to go off the steepest slope and highest ramp, we settled on somewhere near $10,000 after we watched what seemed like 8 year old kids look like pros.
Another phenomenal yelp find by Alyssa (she's on a roll) for lunch found us at Big Mountain Deli in downtown Lake Placid. They have 50+ sandwich options and their bread is phenomenal.
We hopped back in the car again through the Adirondacks ending up on the shores of Lake Champlain. For those that don't know, Lake Champlain is half in NY and half in Vermont and even stretches partially into Canada at the northern end. We took the Lake Champlain car ferry from Essex, NY to Charlotte, VT and 25 minutes later, we had crossed state lines and were ready for a snack. 
We settled on the Ben and Jerry's factory tour in Waterbury, VT and won our tour's "who is from the furthest away" contest and got some stares from the audience as I rocked my Montreal Expos hat with my Los Angeles Rams shirt. The tour was ok, it includes a short video, a quick look into the production room, and then of course, the sample room...but was worth the $4 per person. Luckily for us, they scooped too much for the amount of people in our tour and before long, I was double fisting shots of Americone Dream ice cream.
Alyssa got behind the wheel for the first time in New England and did a stellar job getting us to our final destination of the day after a total of 285 miles driven, Littleton, New Hampshire...a town 3,200 miles away from home, yet eerily resembles the village of Arroyo Grande. After a romantic outside dinner of Chicken Maple Bacon Pizza at Schillings Beer Company (Alyssa on Yelp again), we settled into our room at the historic Thayer's Inn, so old that Ulysses S. Grant once stayed here...small town lodging at it's finest.
--KT
Continuing my ballpark history tour...
17. Minnesota Twins (August 6, 2014)
- Got to watch the game with a former Lipscomb alumni and member of the LU softball team, Vanessa Medina (she is originally from Bakersfield and was working with the Twins that year)
- Free tickets in the beautiful club level at the new Target Field.
- Padres beat Twins 5-4
- Cal Poly alumni Kevin Correia on the mound for the Twins.
- Mall of America after the game
18. Kansas City Royals (August 8, 2014)
- Royals beat Giants 4-2
- Preview of the 2014 World Series
- by myself
- Madison Bumgarner throws a complete game but gets the loss.
- Winning pitcher (Jason Vargas) from the same town as Alyssa was born (Apple Valley, CA)
- Home run by Country Breakfast, Billy Butler
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