Bahia Honda, a Key's Gem

 We stayed at Bahia Honda State Park (pronounced Bay) four nights of our trip. We had only planned to stay for the first two nights but we loved it so much we changed our whole vacation around to go back for the end of our trip. Bahia Honda is about sixty miles down Route 1 in the Keys, or coming from Key West, thirty eight miles north. 

  The park has shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean to the south and the protected Florida Bay on its northern shore. There are two campgrounds separated by the low clearance of the Route 1 bridge above. The campground we stayed at is called Bayside Campground. It only has a few tent sites. The cost to rent a site is $40 plus a seven dollar reservation fee. Fifty dollars is a lot for a campsite, especially a state owned tent site, but still, cheap lodging for the Keys. 

   We spent time in three different sites. All of them are on the water. The sites are so close to the water that one of them floods on a moon tide. The view from the campground and other parts of the park are awesome. 

Yellow flags mean to use caution while 
in the water. Overseas Highway in the 
background

   You can snorkel/swim in both the Atlantic and the Bay. There are buoy's a couple hundred feet out that keep boats from running over snorkelers on the ocean side. On the bayside, there are ropes you have to stay inside. The snorkeling is far better on the ocean side. There is a distinct line where the tan sand meets the green eelgrass. The water is only about 4-7 feet and in many places you can touch bottom.  Once you snorkel out to the eelgrass, you never know what you will see. I snorkeled in the eelgrass for an hour one day. I found a huge live Conch, Schoolmaster Snapper, a Pipefish (which is basically an elongated seahorse with Seahorse face), and a bunch of other colorful small fish. 

   I wanted to snorkel the ocean again the following day but it was too rough. So I snorkeled the bayside. The eelgrass did not have as much life. However the jetty had a lot of fish around the rocks including a big school of Yellowtail Snapper. 

 

Barracuda twenty feet from our tent!

     If you want to see fish but are afraid to snorkel, not to worry. The water right along our campsite was loaded with small to medium size fish. There were two small Barracuda living there. Also around were Sargent Majors, Parrotfish, and Porkfish. There were other fish that we could not identify. These fish were in ten inches of water and easy to see from the shoreline. 

   Whether you are a camper or their for a daytrip, there is plenty to do. as I said, you can swim and snorkel on both sides of the park. Fishing is also allowed. I saw multiple people fish especially during the night. There is a marina where you can rent snorkel equipment. You can also take a boat ride out to Looe Key, the premier snorkeling spot on the coral reef (the weather never lined up with me to do that). You can also buy food at the marina along with clothes and gift shop stuff. 

Bahia Honda is close to other cool spots. The Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge is a few minutes to the south. To the north past the Seven Mile Bridge is the town of Marathon. all of the touristy things are there from restaurants to expensive golf courses. There are places to rent an do all sorts of water acrivities like rent a boat, deep sea fishing, jet skis, and many more. 

  Lastly, Key West is only an hour away. You can easily do a daytrip or more to KW without any trouble. 

 

   I should also point out  I did a little birding at BH. I got a photo upgrade of a Kestrel that seems to live there. I saw my first ever Magnificent Frigatebird that flew over from the bay to the ocean. I saw and got photo upgrades of Yellow Throated Warbler which is very rare to see in Rhode Island. I also looked for a couple of hours for White Winged Doves which were spotted in between the beginning of the trip and the end, but I couldn't find them. 

   All in all, Bahia Honda is one of the best places I have ever been. There is a lot to do  if you like water or fish. The campground is awesome (though, if the wind wasn't blowing, we did get bit by no-seeums). The rangers were really nice. Basically, it is paradise.

Cottonmouth, Pics or it didn't happen

   

   I went to South Florida for the better part of two weeks with my friend Laurie. We did a lot of different things. I'm sure I'll have a dozen posts about the trip. Hopefully with info on what to do and how to improve on our trip. I'm starting my posts off with the one thing that got my heart racing-

 On our trip I saw a Water Moccasin on three consecutive days. I got photos of two of them. Before I go any further, Water Moccasins also go by another name, Cottonmouth. Both words are for the same species. It seems like many Northerners call them Water Moccasins, and down South it is a 50/50 split. Whichever term you use, it is the same species. I have been surprised to learn that many people I know don't know that. I prefer the term Cottonmouth, so that is what I'll be using from now on.

   The first snake I saw was the smallest but by far the scariest. Laurie and I were sitting around the tent after dark when I heard our next site over neighbor say "it's on the trail to the showers?". We walked within my view and I asked him if he was going to look at cool wildlife. He replied there was a Cottonmouth near the showers and he was going to move it. I asked if I could go with him. I followed him up to where the snake was. Sure enough, it was right out in the open fifteen feet from the shower entrance. We bent down to look at it and we could see it was finishing up eating a little Ribbon Snake.

    The Cottonmouth was only 15-18 inches.  My neighbor moved it off of the trail and into the brush so no one or the snake would get hurt. Also of note, he had talked to a park ranger and earlier that day a six foot Eastern Diamondback slithered through the campground. Needless to say, when I woke up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night I did not venture far from the tent. 

Snake 2

   The next day after being disappointed at Corkscrew by lack of, really any wildlife, we decided to go to Six Mile Slough. While we were there, a woman told us about a Cottonmouth down the boardwalk. She gave no directions at all but we went looking for it. While striking out looking for it, Laurie asked a worker if he had seen any snakes. He had seen the Cottonmouth and told us exactly where to go. I bolted to find it leaving poor Laurie in the dust. My heart started racing and my adrenaline was pumping. I was so excited. The snake was still exactly where the guy said it would be. It was ten feet off of the boardwalk sleeping all curled up. We watched it for twenty minutes.

Snake 3

The following day we took a very long ride to Stormwater Treatment Area 5/6. This place was kind of a bust for us also. On the way back to our campsite Laurie decided to stop at some random park with trails (I don't remember the name of it). We walked the trails through some pines to a sawgrass swamp. We didn't see anything other than a Common Yellowthroat Warbler and a Little Blue Heron. As we were walking back the way we came, in the corner of my eye I saw a snake crossing the path where two trails meet. Instantly we could see it was another Cottonmouth. The path was wide through the pines and I had plenty of room to view it. 

 

 I got down low and started firing shots with my camera. As it was approaching the other side of the trail I stood up and took two steps towards it, The snake stopped instantly. I kept taking photos of it. I got behind it and took photos from across the path from which it came. I took a step or two closer and the snake turned its head toward me and opened its mouth to show me its  cotton mouth. 

  This was a warning that I better back off. I did step back a couple feet and took some more photos. I love the fact the snake was basically saying "I don't want to fight you but if you come closer I won't back down". After it showed me it's mouth I went back to the other side of the T- intersection. We watched it for another minute or two admiring it's beauty, power, and temperament. We left it alone and it was still on the edge of the woods when we left. What an amazing experience. 

   
I posted these exciting parts of our vacation on Facebook. My son's mom, Crystal, responded with "Pics or it didn't happen". Hence the name of this post. More photos below

Kokanee- One of the top things on my Bucket List

 

  Some bucket list items can be done just by doing it. For instance, getting a slice of pie in Key West or a drink in a bar that Hemingway went to. Some bucket list items are just seeing something, like Lady Liberty, Independence Hall, or Mt. Rushmore.

    Then there are those that are a challenge. Not only do they require the travel to get to, but there are no guarantees when you get there. These things have the highest risk but when they are accomplished, also the greatest reward. Yesterday, I went fishing for Kokanee in Connecticut, a fish I have wanted to catch for years. 

   Kokanee are a landlocked version of Sockeye Salmon. Sockeye are Red Salmon. The state of Connecticut stocks fingerling salmon in a few lakes in the state. The salmon are caught as adults in nets set out by Fish and Wildlife. The state strips the females of eggs and fertilizes them from the male's milt. They wait for the eggs to hatch then put them back in the lakes as fry and fingerlings. After a few years growing in the lake they try to spawn at the outlets and inlets. Of course, they are unsuccessful but they try none the less. They are wild fish in all ways except for their place of birth. Since they are landlocked and only have a short lifespan they don't get very big. The males reach about fifteen inches and based on the hundreds I saw yesterday, the females an inch less.

  Red Salmon are plankton eaters and while spawning they do not eat. As with all Pacific salmon they die after spawn. When they strike a lure it is out of aggression. They are not trying to eat it. They get annoyed and strike out of anger.

Three years ago I went to catch Kokanee but it was an epic fail. I drove two and a half hours the first week of November to a Kokanee pond. I knew before I stepped out of my car that I wasted my time. The lake was drawn down about six feet. The spawn was over.  I did drive over to the Farmington River and catch a Brown Trout, but overall it was a bad experience.  I wanted to go back the next two years, but birds got in the way.

   Yesterday I went to the same lake to try again for Kokanee. I got there about 9:30 am. I purposely went the last week of October instead of November to avoid the drawdown. Still, I knew very little about Kokanee and just hoped the spawn wasn't over.

  Luckily, when I got out my CRV the water level was high. Also, I saw some dead rotting salmon in the water. I took this as a sign that fish were around as opposed to them all being dead. I put on my waders and made some casts. I know enough about Kokanee to know they are hard to catch. I didn't expect to catch a whole lot. I would have been thrilled to catch one. After making a bunch of casts without any luck, I walked to the other side of the cove to where there is an outlet. I looked in the water and a hundred fish were stacked up right next to the outflow. All of them were bright red in beautiful spawning colors. I had seen a video where a fisherman caught Kokanee from this lake using a countdown Rapala. That's what I had on the line. Swimming it through these fish fifty times produced one snagged Kokanee but no hits. 

  A note about snagging. I knew before I left how hard it is to get Kokanee to bite. I also know that when they are stacked up, there is a good chance of snagging them. I also know that people purposely snag salmon because it is much easier than trying to fool them into biting. On my way down, I made a decision that if I snagged one  I wasn't going to count it as a "caught fish". I wouldn't get any joy out of snagging one. This was a moral decision that I was going to stick to even if I was alone. I really wanted to fool one and catch it the right way. So when I snagged the first Kokanee, it annoyed me more than excited me.

   After fifty casts into a hundred fish, I switched to my fly rod. I put on a bright pink Wooly Bugger hoping the gaudy color would fire them up. Still no luck. I wondered if any of these fish would be "aggressive" enough to take a lure.  About an hour after I started fishing the outlet, another fisherman showed up. He fished near me and caught two Kokanee in the mouth. He was using a tiny Kastmaster and it seemed to be working. He offered me one and I accepted. However my luck didn't change. He caught another while I stayed skunked. 

   It turned out that this fisherman was New England fishing legend Roy Levya. This guy has caught everything under the sun and trophy fish of many varieties. I thought it was Roy while we were fishing. When we finally introduced ourselves it was confirmed. We talked a lot and I asked some questions about the Salmon River in NY. 

   After another thirty minutes of blanking with the Kastmaster I tried a small Pheasant Tail fly on my fly rod. After about ten minutes a Kokanee came up and hit it. Luckily for me it didn't fall off the hook. I netted it with Roy's net. As you can imagine, I was really excited to have caught one and even more so to have gotten it on a fly. Roy was kind enough to take a bunch of photos for me. I took some more of the fish in the net and water. Roy was jealous I got one on the fly rod.

   I didn't catch any more on the fly rod. But I did catch two more on the small Kastmaster. One of them was a beautiful hook-jawed male. I did snag a few others. I tried to shake them off, but a couple I did have to reel in and pull the hook out and release. 

  Thirty minutes before I left two young guys came down fishing for trout. When they saw all the Kokanee they wanted to catch them of course. They had no chance of catching them on Powerbait. So I gave one of them a nymph to use. Before I left, I paid it forward and gave the Kastmaster that Roy gave me to them. Hopefully they got some fish.

  Catching a Kokanee has been something I have wanted to do since I was a little kid. After my first failed attempt three years ago, it has been on my mind. However, it was so much easier the last couple of years to go birding with my friends the last week of October instead of making the five hour round trip drive. Even when I got up yesterday I puttered around for an hour before committing to such a long drive. However, this year I was going to go no matter what. I am glad I did.

   

 

Owl Banding

 Last night I was very fortunate to go to an owl banding. My friend Barbara Seith won an auction to attend an Audubon Society of RI owl banding and a dinner at a wildlife sanctuary normally off limits to the public. She was allowed to include seven other guests. Somehow, I was very fortunate to make the cut. 

   The dinner started at 6:30 but before we ate we checked the nets. The plan if all went well, was to have migrating Saw Whet Owls fly into nets as they migrate south. They are taken out of the nets, measured, banded, and sexed. After a couple of minutes they are released back into the wild. Of course, the purpose of all of this is scientific study and to track their movements. 

   The dinner was delicious consisting of salad, rolls, pasta, and chicken marsala. However, as you can imagine, the hope of all of us was to see an owl up close. The leader, Ornithologist, URI professor Peter Paton was in charge of the banding. I could tell that he was hoping to see an owl. As in one. One owl would be a successful night. He seemed as though chances were better of a getting shut out.

   Every half hour we would take a walk to the nets. Luckily, in one of our very first trips we had a Saw Whet. He untangled it and brought it in to be measured, weighed, and banded. As you can imagine all of us birders were just giddy to be looking at this adorable little owl. 

   I learned so much last night. First, most of the owls caught in RI are yearlings. The more experienced ones migrate further inland away from the cost. Also, most of them are females, over 90%. Many of the males stay on their breeding grounds in northern New England and Canada. However, the further inland you go, the higher the percentage of males. As with many birds of prey, the females are bigger. 

  My favorite fact of the night was that Saw Whets do not necessarily  south in a straight line from N-S. Many of them will fly from west of Lake Superior towards New England and may even winter here. The map of where banded birds were recaptured looked like it had a pound of uncooked spaghetti dropped on it. The lines were all over the place. There was no specific flyway or route. 

 

Northern Saw Whet Owls are tiny as you can 
see by this photo

 Unbelievably the nets caught five Saw Whet Owls. All of them, following statistics, were females, though not all were first year birds. Four of the five birds were very calm. One of them was very angry. It kept biting and clawing at Peter. When it comes to owls, the talons are worse than the beak. That owl got its talon into Professor Paton and drew blood. 

   The other four birds were calm. Even after being released, three of them just flew into the nearest tree and perched for a few minutes. We all took photos of the scientific work and had the owls pose near our shoulder. When they were being released Peter put them on our arm and let it fly off. I volunteered for one of the owls. It sat on my arm for five seconds before flying up to a tree. What a feeling!

   The dinner concluded with excellent slide show by Peter. This is actually where I learned most of the stuff. Another example of interesting info, Saw Whets eat mostly mice and voles, but will add insects and birds to their diet. He had some fantastic photos of hunting Saw Whets and babies in nests (they are cavity nesters like wood ducks). Though as he said, the photos weren't his. He had multiple charts with data that truthfully mesmerized me. 

 

Peter Paton taking measurements

Obviously, I had a great night. I am friends with all but one of the participants and she was also very nice. I got to see science up close along with five owls. I got to carry one of the owls to be weighed and had one fly off of my arm. I got to do something the majority of people including birders can never do. The food was awesome. I learned a ton of new facts. Many of my friends were also there. One last thank you to Barbara for bidding on the owl banding and inviting me. All of us are very grateful.

Oh ya, we also heard a pair of resident Barred Owls and coyotes!!

A pretty busy weekend

I did all sorts of fun things on my two days off this week. I'm going to write about them here in case they give anyone inspiration to do any of these things. Photos from each thing below text.

Trustom Pond

   Friday morning I met up with my friend Sue. The plan was to go to the Charlestown Breachway and look for shorebirds. However, low tide wasn't until noon so we went to Trustom Pond first. We didn't see a lot of  birds other than Yellow Rumps. We did see some cool snails and a beautiful Leaf Hopper insect

Look at the colors on the Red Banded Leafhopper
The snail is a White Lipped Snail. 

Bullfrog

Grove Snail

Charlestown Breachway 

We kayaked to the mudflats. There were very few birds on the mudflats however, before we left, Sue spotted the continuing Hudsonian Godwit across the channel. We watched it feed for half an hour and got some fantastic photo upgrades. I had only seen about four Hudsonian Godwits in my life and they were always far away. 

Hudsonian Godwit

Sadly, Sue and I found this dead skate

Newport Ghost Tour

I had to be home early so I could meet Laurie. We had reservations for the Newport Ghost Tour. This is not like a Haunted House or Corn Maze. A guide dressed in 1800's attire goes to different parts of town and tells you stories about ghosts that haunt the buildings or graveyards. The tour is very historic. Our guide, Brian, knows all of Newport's history. We went to the oldest tavern in America, a church where Washington attended services, and the site where much of the movie Amistad was filmed. Even if you are like me and don't believe in ghosts, it's worth the time because of the history, and the stories are good. The cost is $20/adult. The tour left at 8 pm from the Marriot near the harbor. It was supposed to last until 9:30, but Brian talked until almost ten o'clock. Well worth the money.

This is a photo of an old fire house

Above I cropped it to the left window. Do you see the
ghost of a man looking down on us?

  Cape Ann Whale Watch

    We got home in time to watch the Sox lose Game one to the Astros. However we had to get up early because we had reservations for a whale watch out of Cape Ann (the whale watch is in Gloucester, MA). The trip was scheduled for 8:30 am. They are running whale watches until Halloween. The Captain took us out to Jeffreys Ledge. The trip lasted 3.5 hours. We were back in port about 11:30. The cost is $50 but you can get tickets significantly cheaper on Groupon. 

   Our trip was not spectacular compared to others I've been on.  They can't all be great. Today we saw one Humpback Whale. It was deep feeding so it came up every five to ten minutes to breathe then would dive again. We spent about an hour seeing the whale about five times for a minute before it would arch its back and dive again. There were a lot of Northern Gannets around but other than gulls, no other pelagic birds like shearwaters.

Northern Gannet

After the whale watch we came home and made sausage, peppers, and onions in a Slow Cooker and enjoyed them while watching the Sox go up 8-0 in the second inning. A great weekend to sat the least. 

Lake George

    I had wanted to go to the Revolutionary War battlefield at Saratoga for years. I couldn't justify a three and a half drive each way to see a battlefield for a couple of hours. So it stayed on my bucket list for a long time. Normally, Laurie and I go to New Hampshire the week before Columbus Day. Laurie really didn't want o hike so I suggested Saratoga, but again, it wasn't worth going to for a day trip. So we started researching and found out Lake George is only about 45 minutes north of the battlefield. A little more research revealed a few fun things to do in the area. Instead of going the first week of October, we planned it for the last week in September.

   Make no mistake about it, Lake George is on the map for one reason, it is a tourist town. It is one of the first vacation destinations in America. I can see why, it is beautiful. In fact, Thomas Jefferson called Lake George the most beautiful lake in America. The lake is thirty two miles long and surrounded by the foothills of the Adirondacks. The town of Lake George is at the southern end of the lake. From North Attleboro it is a three and a half hour ride.

   We arrived in Lake George at 3:30 after our morning spent at Saratoga National Historic Park. There is no shortage of motels. We stayed at a little motel called The Admiral. Laurie picks out the motels and I just give her half the money. Since I really don't care where I sleep, its just easier for her to be happy. The Admiral got the best reviews in Lake George according to some website. It was a quaint little place that was spotlessly clean. The owner who was working the front desk, Darrell was a really nice guy. The motel was within easy walking distance to downtown. The price was very affordable, especially for a tourist town. The Admiral does have a pool and it is heated. The sign said it was open until 9 pm, however when we went for a swim on Friday night after Jeopardy (8pm) the gate was locked. That is my only complaint.

   After we checked in, we went for a walk around town. As you would expect, there were restaurants, gift shops, more motels, and t-shirt stores. The lake is in view to the left while walking down the main street. At the bottom of the hill in town is traffic light. If you are heading south, you take a left to go to the port. There is a marina for small boats including police boats with 500 hp motors. There are also large docks for large passenger vessels. There are two companies that have what are basically small cruise ships. Lake George Steamboat Company and Shoreline Cruises. More on them later on. 

   We stayed in Lake George for two nights. As I said, we arrived at 3 pm Thursday and left Saturday morning. We already had our itinerary planned long before we left home.  The first thing we did on Friday was to head north about forty five minutes to a place called Natural Stone Bridge and Caves. This is in Pottersville, NY. It is a pretty cool natural attraction. The cost is about $18/adult. The main attraction is cave with a huge mouth, possibly the largest in the east. The mouth of the cave is roughly sixty feet high and one hundred fifty feet wide. There is also a waterfall on a river. The river goes through the cave and disappears for a short while. There are also other smaller caves that you can look into. All in all, it was a neat place. It was Laurie's favorite thing we did on the trip. The walk takes about an hour, but we went back and sat by the waterfall another twenty minutes or so. The gift shop has a huge mineral collection. One of the biggest I've ever seen. Included were petrified wood pieces the size of laundry baskets. 

To give you an idea about the size of the mouth, there are people in the bottom right of the photo

An opening to a smaller cave and also the photo below

After our walk in the woods, we went back to Lake George. We had a reservation on one of the "cruise ships" scheduled at 2pm.. Lake George is 32 miles long. The boat we took, the Mohican goes 16-17 miles up the lake before turning around.The trip lasts two and a half hours. There is a narrator who points out interesting spots on the lake. The Lake George Steamboat Company has three ships and multiple tours ranging from a one hour sightseeing tour to a six hour foliage tour with happy hour, brunch cruises and cocktail cruises in-between.  Our tour was perfect, other than some cloud cover the weather was great. The narrator was amusing and only talked when there was something worthy of talking about. The trip was over before we knew it. I was saddened when I could see the dock was only a few minutes away, More text after the photos

Views from our cruise

Notice how the boat house is designed to look like the house

To the north the sky was blue with some puffy clouds, to the south it looked like this

   There were many interesting points on our journey. For one, Georgia O'Keefe had a house on the lake and did many paintings from there. A minority owner of the Red Sox has a house on an island. Many of the islands can be reserved for tent camping for tent camping. We saw a few loons as we went past. There were many other intriguing points of interest.  There are multiple marinas and boat ramps on Lake George. It is no exaggeration to believe that during the summer there are a thousand boats cruising the lake. We saw hundreds of docked and moored boats on our cruise. This boat cruise was my favorite thing to do on our mini-vacation. 

   That evening we went to a sub shop. As with choosing a motel, its just easier to let Laurie pick the place. I'm not picky and will eat just about anything that doesn't have beans. Laurie does research and usually (always) finds a place with good reviews. This night we went to a place called Pizza Jerks. I was in the mood for a sausage, peppers, and onions sub. Laurie got a specialty sub. We were both pretty disappointed. Since Covid began, I no longer expect good customer service. I understand how hard it is to get help. However, I do expect the food to be good. My sub was at best "food". Laurie didn't like hers at all. So if you go to Lake George and want a cheap meal, my advice is to pick one of the other half dozen pizza places. 

   Saturday morning we woke a little sad knowing we were going home that day. However, we still had one more fun thing planned. We had reservations for another boat trip. This one was on an authentic riverboat named the Mini Ha-Ha. As I learned, there are only twelve genuine riverboats in America. This was the thing I most wanted to do on the trip.  The riverboat trip is only an hour ride. It goes three miles up Lake George before turning around. It was really cool to see the paddle wheel propel the boat. The boat was converted to diesel a few years back, but the diesel heats the water to steam and the steam really does propel the boat. As one would imagine, the one hour tour on our last day went by much too quickly.

The Mini Ha-ha

   After we got off the boat it was noon time. We could have went home, but our plan was to stop at Golden Corral in Springfield on our way home for supper. This meant we had to kill two hours. We took the auto road up to Prospect Mountain. Prospect Mountain is a hill that overlooks Lake George. The auto road goes most of the way up the mountain to a large parking lot. From there you have to walk to the summit. The view is great looking at the lake and the town of Lake George. We stayed up there about an hour before heading home. We did stop at Golden Corral and we were not disappointed. 

View from Prospect Mountain

Things you should know-

  We didn't know it at the time but we went at an in-between time. The weekend before we went there was a hot air balloon festival. The weekend after was Columbus Day and fall foliage. Thursday was dead and Friday was slightly busier. We could hardly believe Lake George was a tourist town on Thursday as it looked like we should see tumbleweeds. Saturday we could tell the population doubled. During a summer weekend or a three day weekend like Labor Day and Columbus Day, it doesn't take much imagination to see how crowded it can get. There is one main road in, and I'm sure it can get backed up for miles. Though we had no trouble during our stay. 

   I would certainly make motel reservations if you go.

   There are plenty of places to eat from sub shops to fine dining. It is a tourist town so expect to pay a little more.

   I can't say enough good things about the Lake George Steamboat Company cruises

   There is a fort, Fort William Henry, right across the street from the docks that was used during the French and Indian War. We didn't go there but I'm sure it is interesting. Cost $20/ adult. Tour is only 45 minutes long. 

Statue and sign (below)
 at the Battle of Lake George Park

   There is also a battlefield park two blocks down with statues and interpretive signs. We went there for half an hour Friday evening. It was a nice spot. Lots of picnic tables.

   Once you get a motel, Lake George is a walking town. From one end to  the other is only a mile or so. We walked most of the time. There is street parking and parking meters.