Fort Ticonderoga

  Laurie and I have been talking about going to Fort Ticonderoga for two years. It is just too far to do as a day trip at a 4.5 hour drive from the house. Finally, this year we decided to go. I got a camping reservation in the Adirondacks about a month back. We decided not to  buy our tickets to the fort until we got there. This way, if it rained and the weather was bad we wouldn't be out $60 (tickets are $30/person)

   All week we looked at the weather and it was doom and gloom. I had Tuesday off and it looked like showers and then an afternoon T-storm followed by rain on Wednesday which I also had off. This weather report never changed until Monday evening. We had decided not to go and to do our normal stuff on Tuesday and hit a movie on Wednesday.

   We ate steak tips outside on Monday night and we checked the weather again. Tuesday's forecast had changed to cloudy all day with a late day thunder boomer. Wednesday it was still going to rain. Laurie told me that an ice skating comp was at Lake Placid on Wednesday so I realized we could do that on Wednesday. The only thing was the line up hadn't been announced. We were having this discussion at 7:30 pm. 

   At 7:30 we dicided not to cancel our plans and go to Fort Ticonderoga. So I packed the camping gear and Laurie packed the food. We headed out at 9 pm. The plan was to go to the fort Tuesday. If the skating line up had people we wanted to see we would stay overnight at my previously booked (no refund) site and go to skating Wednesday. If the line up sucked we would come home after visiting the fort. We drove until midnight and slept at a rest area on Monday night an hour from the fort. 

   Spoiler alert: The line up for the Lake Placid International was terrible. I only knew one of the teams. So we decided not to go. It started raining  hard on Tuesday after we left the fort. We drove home and got home at 9 pm. I write all of this because decideding to go on the trip at 8 pm was spontanious and an adventure all in itself. But as Laurie and I said, we have been wanting to go to Fort Ticonderoga for two years and we couldn't pass up the plan. The above may not have been great liturature but it will be ingrained in our memory as much as the actual day.

   We arrived at Fort Ticonderoga at 9:15. The fort opens at 9:30 but we planned on eating and changing out of our sleeping clothes and even brushing our teeth in the patking  lot. However, the gates remain closed until 9:30 so we were stuck in a line of cars waiting at the gate. While we were stuck in line I put the car in park and we made a bagel and changed our clothes and put on hiking boots. The gates open at 9:30 and we drove to the lot after buying two adult amission tickets at the gate house. . We brushed our teeth and went in. 

   There is a lot of history at Ticonderoga so instead of explaining it all a quick time line on the map explains everything. The largest actual battle happened during the French and Indian War in 1758. Sixteen thousand Brits attacked the 4000 French and lost with many casualties. 

   There are also a ton of programs and we went to many. We finally decided to skip the canon firing demo because we wanted to actually walk on our own and also make time for lunch. Instead of going on and on about the day it makes more sense to post a bunch of photos with quick explanations since I've droned on enough.  Below is the program schedule for Tuesday

The first thing we did was take the guided tour of the fort that gave an overview of what happened there over the last two hundred and fifty years.  A view from one of the canon overlooking Lake Champlain

Below are two costumed workers playing the fife and drums. But more importantly behind them is the gate that leads into the fort

Many famous people came through this gate. I asked when George Washington came here since I knew he did not fight at Ticonderoga. They told me he was actually the "first tourist". He came after the war to see some of the battlefields of the northern theater that he did not participate in. 

   At 11:30 we took a tour of the museum, It was brief and the lady only covered a couple of items. We knew we had to make time to go back and that is part of the reason we skipped the canon firing. My favorite piece is a powder horn that Robert Rogers used. Rogers is famous for creating Roger's Rangers. The modern day Rangers (like those in Blackhawk Down) are "descendents" from the elite group that Rogers created.  Rogers  was from northern New Hampshire. I climbed a mountain named after him (Rogers Ledge) 

The museum had everthing from canon to spoons owned by the men. We had to go through it fairly quickly but it was really worth the time 

Below is a lock of hair from Benedict Arnold. Arnold along with Ethan Allen came here and captured the canon that would eventually drive the British out of Boston Harbor.

A letter written by Ethan Allen to General George Washington. These are only a couple of artifacts from the museum. The museum was worth the price of admission alone.

At 12:30  we watched the drum and fife demonstration on the parade ground. Basically they expalined a few of the orders that could be heard better and further through drum and fife than by shouting orders in battle. 

It so happend that exactly 250 years ago on July 28 the first reading of the Declaration of Independence was read at the fort. Though while it would have been cool to see the reenactment of this moment we were inside the museum and had decided to do a little exploring on our own.

Below are the officer's quarters from the parade ground

  At 2:45 we took a tour of the gardens. The gardens were created by the Pell family. They had a home on the property after they bought the land. They are the people that restored the fort and opened it to the public. Without them, the fort  was being torn apart by locals that were using the stones for building material.

  The gardens ranged from flowers to herbs. They were very formal and beautiful. Some of the gardens are themed such as this rainbow garden below.

ROY G BIV

We even managed to get a lifer butterfly. This guy is a Silver Spotted Skipper

There are oxen on the property. An ox doesn't get that name until they are five years old. Until then they are just steers.

I took another hundred photos from the fort and I may add later for my own personal collection. After the gardens we drove out of the fort. We had planned to drive up to Mt Defiance. From that vantage point Gentleman John Burgoyne stationed canon. This cause the Continentals to abandon the fort. This victory was short lived as Burgoyne's army was crushed at Saratoga a couple of months later.

   The reason we ran out of time was I wanted to see the battlefield of Carillon. While the fort itself is famous, the unknown battle of the French Indian War was massive. The year was 1758. The French controlled the fort and knew there was an English invasion. The commander decided to leave the fort and fight from the summit of a hill three quartes of a mile away.

 

   The French cut down trees and used them as firing positions. When the English came they attaked these entrenched positions with a frontal attack. They were decimated. The English had 2500 casualties compared to four hundred from the French. Though the French won this battle, it had little outcome on the war and the English won a year later.

   Still, I wanted to see where this fight took place. Because I walked around all of the trenches and read the signage I chose not to drive up Mt. Defiance. Instead, I had an entire battlefield to myself.

One of the French casualties was their general. He is honored here

Below is a trench the French used as a place to fire.

The last thing we saw as we left the site were these sheep taking a nap next to the exit road.

Pawtuckaway State Park

   

As

Laurie and I stayed at Pawtuckaway State Park on Tuesday night. It was an hour and forty five minutes from Wachusett Meadow to our campground. This amazed me that Wachusett Meadow is in  north-central MA and Pawtuckaway is in southern NH and it was that long of a drive. In  contrast, from Pawtuckaway to my house on the MA/RI border it was only an hour and a half drive. 

   The state park sits on the bank of a nine hundred acre lake of the same name. I didn't plan on fishing but did want to scout out the lake and campground for future adventures. By the time we got to the campground it was raining pretty hard. We decided not to set up the tent and just slept in the car. The next morning before heading out we did explore a little bit.

   The park has a nice swimming beach and a canoe launch. There is a small island that you can get to by foot bridge. From the island we saw a family of loons. From our vantage point I could see seven
different islands. The lake looked fishy and I was sad that I didn't bring my canoe. 

Common Loons

   The park had many picnic tablesnear the beach. We went to the beach during a lull in the rain and by the time we made it from the parking lot the rain picked up again. We watched a young park ranger pick up trash at the beach because entitled people felt they could litter. This poor guy was picking up other people's rubbish in the rain. Humans suck

   The park itself was quite beautiful and I plan on going back with my canoe and fishing gear. 

   

79 Newts

  
   Laurie and I went camping the last two days. She had suggested that we go to America's Stonehenge in southern New Hampshire sometime. I had never been there so thought "what the hell, why not?" I didn't love the idea of driving up to New Hampshire for just a day so we did what we usually do... we figured out other things to do in the area. We went to three places in two days then came home to a nap and went to a concert Wednesday night. All of these things will get their own blog post. 

 We started our trip on Thursday driving to a Mass Audubon sanctuary called Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary. This is a large property covering over a thousand acres. I had always wanted to go there but the long drive (without piggybacking other activities) kept me away. There are twelve miles of trails and although we didn't plan on doing them all, we did plan on hitting every beaver pond, meadow and any other highlight.

   Being named for a large meadow, we hoped to see many butterflies. It was cloudy and windy when we got there so we knew that it would be unlikely that we saw many. There was a chance of rain, but it was low enough that we risked the trip. We did see two new species of butterflies for the year. We saw Canadian Tiger Swallowtail which is a large yellow butterfly. The other was a smaller Pearl Crescent, while small, its wing patterns are really introcate. I've seen many Swallowtails but the Crescent was a species I'd probably seen but never identified.

   While we were out on our first trail it started to rain. We were a mile from the car at a beaver pond. The woods kept us mostly dry but it made us turn around and head for the car. As we got back to the car the rain stopped and we decided to make our lunch. After lunch, since it had not rained for half an hour we went to another trail through  a pasture to a quartz boulder. This was a round trip of 1.2 miles through the meadow and a hemlock forest. 

 

 When we got to the quartz boulder Laurie noticed two bright orange "salamanders" on it. They were so still they looked like little plastic kids toys. I finally realized they were the Red Eft phase of Red Spotted Newts (also known as Eastern Newts). These newts have a strange life cycle. Like many amphibians  they are born in the water. After a few months they come out of the water and live on land for the next two to three years. This is the Red Eft phase, though they are a bright orange. After a couple of years they go back to the water as adults were they cn live another decade. 

   After seeing the first two, Laurie and I continued down the loop trail. We noticed a couple more of the newts right on the trail. Then we saw more and more. I was keeping track but at one point Laurie said she ws happy to say that she saw "twenty-plus" Well that was an understatement because the rain had made the entire population come out from under hiding. They were everywhere. As the title says, we saw seventy nine. I'm sure I'd never seen seventy nine newts in my life never mind in one day. We saw them from the boulder all the way up until we reached the meadow again. This was a distance of about three quarters of a mile. Because of the rain and likely more of it, I did not bring my camera. I took about fifty photos with my phone camera, none of which are totally clear.

Moving three off the trail
so they don't get stepped on.

   We walked around the meadow for a short time looking for the Pearl Crescent butterfly. After which, I went back into the woods with my big camera to get some photos I'd be confident in. I hustled out to the same trail that we had seen them. It hadn't rained in over an hour and all of the newts were gone! I did not see even one. I couldn't believe it they all went back into hiding. Laurie and I truly had a case of "right place/right time.

   All in all, the newts were obviously the highlight but even without them Wachustt Meadow is worth a visit. 

Pearl Crescent

   

Crane Management Area

Baltimore Checkerspot

  The day after going to the WWII Museum, Laurie went to Crane Wildlife Management Area in Falmouth. It was already our second or third time there this year. We went looking for wildlife but mostly butterflies. My hopes were not high because it was very windy. It turned out that it didn't matter, butterflies were everywhere. 

    We walked for hours and probably covered over five miles. Crane is a giant meadow/field. Because of this, it has different bird species than are found in the forested state. Eastern Kingbirds, Orchard Orioles, and Grasshopper Sparrows are common nesters. Grasshopper Sparrows, especially, are very rare nesting birds in Mass/RI. Blue Grosbeakes also nest at Crane. It is the only known place in Massachusetts where this southern species nests. Until this year, I had never seen one there. However, this year, I have seen them the last two times I was there (sorry, no photos)

   When we opened up our car doors in the parking lot we were disappointed by the wind but it was over an hour drive so we planned to mke the best of it. Even without butterflies, we weren't going to be disappointed. huge parts of the field are covered by acres of a wildflower meadow. Countless species of wildflowers in many colors were everywhere. 

   Crane is a known spot for a species called Baltimore Checkerspot. We went to Crane a few years ago to see them. It had been a couple of years since we went back to see them. Checkerspots are a very beautiful butterfly. We hadn't seen any during our previous adventures there so we thought it was either a bad year for them or we had mussed their season. During our visit we ended up seeing a few. The first one that we found resulted in some fist bumping and high fives. I got some half way decent but not spectacular photos. 

 

Grasshopper Sparrow

 We didn't see any herps at all but did find many other species of butterflies. While walking around we saw two other species of butterflies that were lifers for us. The first was an Edward's Hairstreak. Hairstreaks are a family of small butterflies that look very similar. I am a novice when it comes to identifying butterflies so luckily there are useful online guides the most important is the app Seek. Seek told me that my little Hairstreak was an Edward's. 

   The other species that was new for us was a Common Buckeye. It was near the end of our walk and sitting right out in the dirt path so we looked at it for a very long time. I took all of the photos that I wanted nd we moved on.

   While most of this post has been about butterflies, Crane is just a beautiful place anyway. As I said, wildflowers are everywhere. Living in the Northeast, it is almost astonishing to be walking in a field this large. We could see the car from the edge of the woods on the other side of the field and we were at least a mile away.

Edward's Hairstreak on Butterfly Milkweed

   We saw a dozen Grasshopper Sparrows. Many were perched up on small shrubs singing. We had a Blue Grosbeak and Orchard Orioles. There were many other birds and it was nice to see a thriving mini-ecosystem.  We had a great time. Walking at Crane on this date was one of the highlights of my summer.  

Common Buckeye

Beautiful Wildflowers

World War II Museum, Wakefield, RI

 

Audie Murphy, the most
decorated soldier of WWII
played himself in the movie
about him. This is his"uniform"
he wore in the movie

   On the rainy Tuesday, Laurie and I went to the World War II Museum in Wakefield, RI. In a word...AWESOME! I've been to a lot of museums including all of the Smithsonions. I can tell you that if you love history, this small museum is one of the best. 

   Obviously, the museum has artifacts from WWII. There are multiple small rooms absolutely crammed with stuff. They have so much  memoribilia that it is almost piled on the floor up to the ceiling. When I go to a museum, I usually end up seeing a couple of things that really stick with me. For example, I was blown away at the Museum of Fine Art when I came across stones from the Temple of Athena in Athens. 

  At this small museum, my jaw was on the floor almost the entire time. I could not believe that there was so much history in this place. There were artifacts from the US soldiers, Germans including Nazi propoganda, Russians, and even stuff from the Japanese/ Chinese theater of the war. On top of all of that, there were costumes from John Wayne, Lee Marvin (The Dirty Dozen) and others from Hollywood war movies.

   Nazi's are the worst people as a group to ever live. The horrors they caused is worse than disgusting, it is tragic. So when I tell you that there was a lot of Nazi stuff, I am not glorifying it, Numbers do not tell the story. Knowing the statistics about how many people died in concentration camps, work camps, and battles will still never allow us to understand the suffering. Seeing items from Hitler and other leaders of the Nazis is a strange feeling. Being that close to pure evil is unnatural. Knowing that Herman Goering's DNA could still be on his nightshirt or that Heinrich Himmler (leader of the SS) actually touched a piece of paper that he signed eighty years ago is a strange feeling that I can't explain.

   The cost of admission is ten dollars. We took the tour lead by a volunteer. The tour lasts almost two hours and I am glad we took it. Even the tour leader can only scratch the surface of how much stuff is in the museum, but he pointed out so many things we never would have noticed on our own. As I said, some of this stuff is right on the floor because they have so much of it. 

   The one thing that got me a emotional was a striped uniform that the prisinors in concentration camps had to wear. It is rigtht out in the open on a manikin and we were allowed to touch it. I was thinking about what this poor person had to go through. I do not know their story, but even in a best case scenario that they lived, how much death did  (he?) see? How much did he starve? What family members died or were never seen again? I thought all of this when I touched the uniform. I knew that just on the inside of that materiel a man lived in constant fear, hunger, and surrounded by death. I got a little choked up.

   There is no doubt that we will go back. We will probably go again in the winter. I won't take the tour again, since I see no need to  make the volunteer talk to us for two hours again. We will take our time and walk around and see if we can notice things we did not see before. Below are some of the highlights that I could not believe were in the collection. One last reminder, even though I took photos of Nazi items...facism is very bad and Nazi's were/are evil.

   One more last thought before you look at the photos below, I'm glad all of this stuff is saved and we can all learn from it. As Doctor Indiana Jones said many times "that belongs in a museum"

  Below is actual volcanic sand from the island of Iwo Jima

Dinnerware owned by Hitler

The costume John Wayne wore in the movie "The Sands of Iwo Jima"

Coat worn by Lee Marvin in "The Dirty Dozen"

A plate owned by Eva Braun, Hitler's girlfriend. 

Notice the initials

Many German Lugers

I was allowed to touch the shoulder of this prison uniform 

from a concentration camp. It was the saddest item at the museum

A book signed by Admiral Chester Nimitz 

Naval Commander of the Pacific fleet during the war 

Below is the shovel that Hitler used to break ground in

the creation of the Autobahn

A photo of him holding it

Jewish/ Cocentration Camp prison uniform 

I figure you don't need an explanation for this one

Not a lot of love between General Patton (left) and 

Bernard Montgomery (back to us)

Herman Goering's Nightshirt.

Head of the German Luftwaffe and Hitler's 

second in command

Coral and rock from the island of 

Peleliu a costly, forgotten, and mostly pointless battle fought in the Pacific.

It is highlighted in the Hanks/Speilberg series "The Pacific"

John F. Kennedy's beneficiary form in case of death.

His signiture is on it. He left all of his assets to his father

A section of the U.S.S. Arizon sunk at Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941