May 22 Middlebury to Paradox Lake Campground

 Steve Powell joined the team today, so now we have 5 riders for the next several days (Thank you, Jill for bringing Steve our way!).  His impact was immediate.  It turns out that the ferry crossing Lake Champlain from Vermont to Tyconderoga, NY was out of service.  Steve had noticed a road sign on his drive to Middlebury from Ithaca the previous day.  After some verification with locals at the bagel shop, we found that sure enough.... ferry was not running.  I didn't even know that it was a ferry crossing, I just assumed it was a bridge.  Anyhow, it saved us nearly a full day ride by finding an alternative route before making the mistake of heading straight to Tyconderoga.  

The alternate route was still quite scenic and we made the crossing of Lake Champlain at His Majesty's Fort at Crown Point.  We had a nice picnic lunch on the NY side and eventually made our way to re-connecting to the Northern Tier Route on our way to Paradox Lake Campground.  The campground was nice with clean restrooms and showers, but the mosquitoes were hell.  We were joined in our campground by a few frogs, who probably came over to feast on the mosquitoes.  

Notables:

1)    We've completed Section #11 of the NTR (northern tier route), which ended at Tyconderoga.  Additionally, we completed 450 total miles and ascended over 30,000 feet.

2)    We've passed through 3 states now and entered our 4th.  Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont - check!

3).    Although the car has been convenient on occasions, we are excited to dump it so that we can all ride together rather than switching off drivers.  We will return it to Syracuse on May 26 am.

4)    One disappointment - there has been very few beers sampled.  Stores sell craft beers in 4-packs only and I'm not about to carry around 3 warm beers with me!