A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Back in Westchester County, NY

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The morning after our dinner at Roots we had breakfast, let Juno run around for a while and then, since my friends had offered to drive me back home, we headed off back towards the lower Hudson valley where I live.

On the way we stopped at Chuang Yen monastery (above), near Putnam Valley where I used to have a house.

Finally, we reached Westchester County where I now live. After a quick drive around (where, among other places we took a quick look at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture), we went to dinner at one of my favorite riverside restaurants: The Boathouse in Ossining, NY.

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A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – last dinner before leaving Vermont

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After a fairly long drive back from Ticonderoga we decided to eat in Rutland, Vermont at a restaurant called Roots. We had a great meal in a pleasant and interesting location. This was marred by only one thing. When I came to pay for the meal their machines would not accept any of my credit cards. So, my friends had to pay. When I was able to contact my bank, they told me that there was no problem with the cards, and that if they had been declined, they would have received a message – which they didn’t. The only thing they could offer was that the machine being used by the restaurant must have been faulty.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Star Trek Original Series Set Tour

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When I mentioned to a colleague that we would be visiting Ticonderoga, NY she suggested that we might want to check out the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour. I’ve been watching Star Trek since I was kid, and my friend’s husband was an even more devoted fan than I am (he seems to be able to remember every episode in great detail, which is something that I’m a long way away from being able to do). So he got tickets for us.

The tour’s website provides the following description:

Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour is Located in Historic downtown Ticonderoga, New York.

When the STAR TREK television series was canceled in 1969, the original sets were dismantled and largely destroyed, only a few small items of the actual sets remain today, and those that have survived are in private collections. Trek superfan James Cawley began the process of rebuilding the sets just as they would have been seen 50 years ago when the series was being filmed, a 14 year journey has culminated in the most accurate rebuild of the original sets, and is now open and welcoming STAR TREK fans from all over the world!

Our sets are complete recreations built using the original blueprints, hundreds of hours of serious research and thousands of photographs – both period images and images culled from extensive review and capture from the original episodes. The sets will NOT and were NOT designed to move from one city to another and are fully licensed by CBS. The Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour Invites you to come see the Desilu Studio as it looked during the years between 1966-1969 while Star Trek was in production.

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This “Batmobile” stood outside the entrance to the tour. We later discovered that it had been built by the person who also owned to tour.

The picture at the top of this post, and the next three pictures were taken in the lobby while we were waiting for the tour to begin.

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The next three pictures show the transporter room, featuring my friend’s husband and (in the second picture the two consoles used in the original series)

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In the next two pictures we’re in sick bay.

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The famous curved corridor.

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The conference room featuring a Vulcan lute (sometimes referred to as a Vulcan harp, Vulcan lyre, or Vulcan lyrette) was a twelve-stringed musical instrument played on the planet Vulcan that was tuned on a diatonic scale and noted to be very soothing.

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A couple of artifacts featuring a skull and a Tricorder.

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Captain Kirk’s room

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The Engine Room (I’m not sure about the first picture below, but I think it was the engine room. The second one certainly is.

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On the bridge

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All in all, it was much better than I thought it would be and I really enjoyed it. The highlight of the tour was being able to sit in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the starship “Enterprise”!

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Fort Ticonderoga – Mount Defiance

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In an earlier post I urged readers to look for a flag on a nearby hill. That hill is actually Mount Defiance. This view of Fort Ticonderoga was taken from there.

“Mount Defiance is an 840 ft (260 m) high hill on the New York side of Lake Champlain, in the northeastern United States. It is notable in that the hill militarily dominates both Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, but it was deemed inaccessible so never fortified. Mount Defiance was previously known as Sugar Loaf.” (Wikipedia).

In the 1777 Siege of Fort Ticonderoga, the British army succeeded in positioning artillery on Mount Defiance, causing the Continental Army to withdraw from both forts without a fight.

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And with this final wonderful view (below) of Lake Champlain from Mount Defiance we ended our visit to Fort Ticonderoga and headed off to our next destination, also in Ticonderoga, NY.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Fort Ticonderoga – The King’s Garden

by Posted in Buildings/Structures, Flowers, Gardens, Nature Leave a comment
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But there’s more to Fort Ticonderoga than the Fort itself and its collections. There’s an impressive collection of books in the shop; a restaurant offering locally produced farm to table meals; a boat ride on Lake Champlain (which looked interesting, but unfortunately we didn’t have time for); an extensive corn maze where my friend’s husband took their dog for a walk. And then there’s the King’s garden where my friend and I went while her husband and the dog explored the corn maze.

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Take A Stroll Through New York’s Past At This Historic Garden by John Williams on Only in New York describes it as follows:

There are a lot of pretty gardens in New York State, but only a few come with over a decade of history. For those looking to visit a garden that is both beautiful and historical, there is one choice in New York State that is quite possibly a bit more satisfying than many others. We are talking about King’s Garden at Fort Ticonderoga. With major Revolutionary and Colonial war history, it might just be the most historical garden in New York. For lovers of nature, it will not disappoint. For more information, keep reading, below.

The garden, which was originally called the Colonial Revival King’s Garden, was first designed by Marian Cruger Coffin in 1921. Coffin also just happens to be one of the first female landscape architects in America.

The elements of the park include a reflecting pool, brick walls and walkways, a manicured lawn and hedges, and plenty of annual and perennial flowers, which are displayed according to color and form.

The botanical garden is six whole acres, and full of heritage flowers that harken back to the location’s Colonial and Revolutionary history.

Today, it features new gardens and orchards, tended using sustainable agricultural practices.

A video tour of the grounds and gardens can be found here.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV