We just arrived home from what has to be one of the most relaxing and enjoyable vacations we have ever been on as a family. We were introduced to the Adirondacks several years ago by our friends who regularly go there (they basically live there for the summer) and spend time on a beautiful lake called Tupper.
This year, we decided to expand our typical visits of long summer weekends into a full fledged week long stay over the 4th of July week. We ended up finding a house via VRBO about 15 minutes away from Tupper on Lake Eaton which is basically in the town of Long Lake, New York. Lake Eaton was just the right size for everything we needed which was basically, boating (we rented a nice size “party barge” of a pontoon boat for the week), swimming and fishing. While the water temp was a bit “refreshing” we still were able to have a blast all week.
Our house was right on the lake, had a nice dock and a boathouse and fit the five of us perfectly. It also did not have WiFi nor did it have a TV so we really took advantage of being free of technology and enjoyed spending time together as a family without any outside distraction. Each day started without any set plan but everyday we found some type of fun adventure or event. Those included taking a sea plane ride from Helms Flying Service in nearby Long Lake, driving to see the raging Buttermilk Falls, a visit to the amazing W!ld Center, opening night of a local art show and witnessing the most amazing and longest fire works show we ever seen over Long Lake. It was also fun to have friends from home nearby since we either hosted or met up with them several times during the week to cook out, fish, hike, etc. throughout the week.
Our lakeside rental was from Saturday to Friday so we knew in advance that our vacation would involve a “second phase” since we didn’t want to have to head home on Friday morning. Our first stop was a day at our friends place on Tupper Lake. They have an amazing “tiny house” in a campground right on the lake where we generally relaxed and water skied. Our youngest (at five years old) even water skied for the first time! After a great dinner with them we pushed on 40 minutes down the road to the town of Lake Placid. It was a bit surreal to come back to civilization so to speak by checking into a hotel after living around camp fires, in the woods and with no TV but everyone agreed that the hot shower with awesome water pressure was a welcome addition to our vacation.
Lake Placid hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics and is chock full of fun things to do around all the Olympic events. We stayed downtown which put us right in the midst of the Olympic Museum, the Ice Rink (where USA beat Russia called the “Miracle on Ice”) and all the neat shops downtown. We were also a 15 minute easy drive to the Ski Jump, Bobsled/Luge/Skeleton tracks and Whiteface Mountain all of which we toured and visited. We were only there Friday night into Sunday afternoon but we all agreed that we’d be back to spend some more time there and it was the perfect way to wrap up what was a fantastic vacation.
Hit us up with questions if you plan to visit the Adirondacks. We love the area and would be happy to share places to go, and things to see!
