July 27
On the border between Vermont and New York sits 500+ square mile Lake Champlain. At it’s widest point, the lake is up to 14 miles wide, but at it’s narrowest points, say, between Grand Isle, VT and Plattsburgh, NY, it’s only a couple miles.
We took a ferry across the river between those two points.
Leading up to the weekend of July 27, Brandy had started talking about how she wanted to see the new Twisters movie in 4DX. She had seen some TikToks about it and thought it’d be a fun experience. The closest theater with 4DX capabilities was in, like, Albany, NY, over three hours away. Since a 4DX experience was out of the question, she still wanted to go see the movie.
We had already been planning on taking the ferry across Lake Champlain anyway so we figured we’d work the movie into the trip.
I bought advanced tickets for a 1:00 pm show at the Regal Cinema at Champlain Centre around which the rest of our day would be planned.
On the morning of, we headed out at around 9:00 am, stopping at the post office and at the gas station on the way.
We went right back through Burlington, where we’d been a week before, continuing on US route 2 over the South Channel Outlet Bridge onto Grand Isle to Gordon’s Landing where we paid a $25-ish fee for the truck, me and Brandy. We were directed to lane one where we were toward the end of a long line of cars already waiting for the next ferry.
The ferry pulled into the landing in short order and we watched as a long line of cars, trucks and even an RV drove off. Once empty, we were let on with no hassle at all. I drove the truck onto the ferry and before we knew it, we were moving.
As we pulled away from the dock, I hopped out to explore a little bit, heading up to the second level. I took a few pictures and kind of wandered around a bit until we quickly approached the dock in Plattsburgh.
In total, the ride was only about 15 minutes. We we quickly shooed off the boat and we found ourselves at the Champlain Centre mall a little too early so we decided to pull into Ollie’s Discount Outlet, a closeout outlet where overstock and irregulars are sent to be sold at a steep discount.
We actually shopped around for quite a bit, picking up some snacks, pantry goods and even finding some beach towels for us to take with us on the following weekend’s adventures.
Once we paid, we made our way to the mall proper where we walked in to the miniscule food court, only containing four eateries- a Sbarros, a Chinese place, a Thai place and an ice cream place. We settled on grabbing a quick bite at the Chinese place. We decided to split a two-entree meal with some spring rolls and egg rolls.
As we sat in the food court eating, I was saddened by the state of the brick and mortar mall. I fondly recalled the times I’d spent in malls during their hey-day in the late 80s and early 90s, as they flourished. I even remarked how Coronado Mall in Albuquerque seemed to be doing alright in spite of the decline of the American indoor mall.
The food was really bad and we really hardly ate it. We wound up throwing most of it away.
Our show was starting soon so we headed into the cinema, stopped for concessions and found our seat in the theater.
The movie was pretty good. Not as good as the first movie with Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, but still entertaining enough.
After the movie, we reversed course, heading back to the ferry dock on the New York side, paying a bit more this time, thanks to higher taxes in NY, then making the hour and a half drive back to our temporary home in Stockbridge.
Conclusion
While taking the ferry is likely a part of the daily commute for many people who don’t think anything of it, it was a new and exciting experience for us. I was also happy to be able to take Brandy to New York for the first time, though we barely made it into the state.
We absolutely could have taken a bridge back over the lake into Vermont, adding I think like 15 minutes to the drive while saving the $25 but hindsight is 20/20.
Taking the ferry was a fun thing to do and a nice, new experience for the both of us. I would absolutely do it again if I needed to get somewhere that a ferry would make it faster or easier, but it’s not something I would seek out to do just to do.
As I mentioned, I did snap a few pics while on the boat. You’ll never guess where you’ll find those. (hint: they’re in my Photo Diary.)
We had one last adventure in Vermont before packing up and heading to Maine. The post from that is forthcoming.
Until then!
-Phil