September 11, 2024 - September 21, 2024 -- Lake George Escape Campground, NY to Robb Family Farm Sugar House, VT
Written By: Wendy
Driving with an RV was a learning curve for both Scott and I for several reasons. One, obviously, being towing for the first time. Two, being finding somewhere to park and stop along the way. We had gotten pretty confident with both of those things, but number three was still tricky for us. Three, was knowing what roads we could and couldn't drive on. We'd heard that it was much more difficult to tow an RV out east because there were lots of rickety old narrow bridges and low tunnels that we couldn't drive over or in. So we invested in an RV Life subscription, a navigation system that checks all the roads for us and tells the "safest" way to go for our length and weight. We had trusted it blindly, but coming in to the Lake George campground, it took us on a bit of an excursion. We got off the highway, and we were only maybe 1 mile from the campground. Signs said to go right, but RV Life said to go left, so we followed RV Life and went left. It took us on a narrow winding road on the edge of the lake. Gorgeous, absolutely, but fun to drive towing your 33 foot trailer, not so much. It then told me to turn. I looked at the road, and it was a steep gravel road. I was driving and gave Scott a very skeptical look of panic. There was no way I could turn around, so I kept going. We bounced along on the gravel road for a few miles, and then it eventually took us to our campground. We made it, but it left us shaking our heads and wondering why it took us on this galavant over the river and through the woods, literally. Later, we came to find out that there was bridge on the main road between the highway and our campground. There was a restriction for no semis on that bridge, but we would have been fine. Suffice to say that we did not follow RV Life when we left and we went over that bridge and lived to tell another day.
After we had a few days to settle into Lake George, we prepared for our family retreat. This was our second annual retreat, and we were really excited to have some intentional time together and to connect as a couple and as a family. Our first family retreat was in January 2023. We were still in our sticks and bricks then (that's the full time travel lingo for a house. Ya, we're in the know now.), and we rented a little cabin about 45 minutes away from us in the woods. There was no cell service there, and we completely disconnected from everything. We spent the weekend spending intentional time together, going over our family values, discussing future plans, and solidifying our 50 Pies plans. It ended up being a huge weekend for us that completely altered our future, so we were excited to see what would come out of this retreat weekend.
We started off Friday morning with Scott and I getting up before the kids and have coffee and tea outside by the fire to revisit our family values. The kids were very gracious that morning and slept in an extra hour. It was the perfect way to start and set the tone for the weekend. The weekend continued with Scott and I having specific discussion topics and activities we did together while the kids were sleeping. When the kids were awake, we either did intentional activities all together as a family or traded off kid duty to complete an independent activity that we'd discuss later to deepen our connection. One of the highlight activities we did as a family was to go to Fort William Henry in downtown Lake George. It was an active fort in the mid 1700s, and they had people dressed in period clothing. There were demonstrations of firing a musket and a cannon, which Parker thought was just about the coolest thing he'd ever seen. We learned a lot about the history of the area and enjoyed our time all together.
Another highlight activity was hiking up Pilot Knobb. At the top, we were rewarded with stunning views of Lake George below. I brought along paper and double sided tape for the kids to make nature crowns along the way by gathering nature to stick to their crowns. It was another fantastic hike, and we were even able to see some trees that had started to turn on the hike.
We did not have major life altering revelations at the end of this retreat, but we did decide that it was definitely time well spent and that we needed to do another one in January. We made a commitment then and there to do a family retreat every January from here on out. It would be a good way to start the year and slow down and connect after the craziness of the holidays.
The rest of our time in Lake George was pretty slow and we spent very little time altogether. We'd done enough of that over the weekend, just kidding! We were planning a week long Halloween event for other families that travel full time, so now that it was mid-September, we had a lot of planning that needed to get done. We swapped kid duty, and I took the kids to the Saratoga Springs Children's Museum one morning, and Scott took the kids to the play at the river another morning.
After Lake George, we were headed out of New York, and we were sad to leave just as the temperatures were starting to drop into true fall weather temps and leaves were turning. But we had places to go and people to see! Scott's parents were flying out to see us in Mystic, CT. So we said good bye to New York, which luckily had definitely lived up to our expectations. On our way to Mystic, we broke up the drive and spent one night in Brattleboro, Vermont at a Harvest Host stay at The Robb Family Farm Sugar House. It was a maple syrup farm that was absolutely adorable. We got a tour and learned how the make maple syrup and even got to do a syrup tasting based on the different grades of syrup. It was a unique stop off and a way for us to check off Vermont, at least on this east coast trip.