Post #3: NY to VT by ice

Well, here I am on my third post. Seems momentous, but who knows, I can't say I know a whole lot about blogging. A couple of weeks ago we decided to take a drive through the Vermont countryside. It has a nice air to it, something about the scenery evokes the same feelings as the countryside of France does. We left early in the day in search of a farmers market or an orchard with a store open more than just seasonally. We got on the road and drove through the dacks for a little while, wondering when we'd be hitting the Vermont border. I had set google maps to avoid any ferry crossings (here's my car on the ferry over the summer) over Lake Champlain knowing we wouldn't have much luck with the seasonal ferry (Champlain freezes pretty darn quickly in the winter, as we found out). So after getting to Ticonderoga, we were a little worried. I finally followed a sign pointing to where the ferry would be in any other season - We reached the Lake to find a guy sitting on the tailgate of his truck staring out at the lake. We asked him if he knew where we might be able to cross. He chuckled, pointed at our side of the lake and dragged his finger through the air until it fell pointing at the other side of the lake. My heart kind of dropped, I've been in love with my Subaru since the day I got it - the fact that I had a dream about my car falling through an icy lake a month prior didn't make me feel too much better. I hopped out of the car and wandered out to a Ford truck parked halfway between NY and VT, an area I was more comfortable with when it was water. I was reassured that people "had been doin' it for weeks," and that I'd be fine. I jogged (or whatever you wanna call trying to walk fast on ice) back to my car and hopped in. I turned on the ignition and started driving. I'm used to snowshoeing across ice covered ponds - even there the cracks you hear beneath you sound like muted gunshots. The car did awesome (to no ones surprise, Subaru's AWD is best, you know), but getting to that other side was relieving. We drove up to the Orchard we had planned on going to only to be told that (despite what it said online), they were closed for the season. I figured I'd find a little health food store or market somewhere and try to scope out a specific type of maple syrup instead, called "Northern Comfort" that I had read about in an outdoors magazine a while back. We ended up driving out and heading into a few small towns to check out the area as well. We saw an awesome little dam in one of the towns that was creating a sweet glacial looking buildup near the falls. Didn't take any pictures of it, but now I'm wishing I did. We drove back down a ways to a small town in VT about 20 miles away from our apartment and headed back home, unfortunately without any luck finding the maple syrup.