Task 12: Fort Ticonderoga

Visiting Fort Ticonderoga was actually not on my bucket list of places until last year.  When I went to a flower show, I found out that they have beautiful King's Gardens in addition to the fort.  Perfect, I thought, bring Little Man to see the fort and venture to the garden after.  Not only was that a perfect plan, but it was planned for a perfect day and we managed to get in just ahead of the tourist groups. 

 

For those who know nothing about it, Fort Ticonderoga is a Revolutionary and French and Indian War fort that is situated between two major bodies of water that controlled the northern access to the colonies.  It played a pivotal role in both the French and Indian and then the Revolutionary War. There is a lot more to the story than that, but that gives you the basic gist of where we were. 

Little Man had a blast pretending he was back in the Revolutionary War and occasionally would ask questions of the eager re-enactors situated throughout the fort just waiting for someone to ask them questions.  Little Man was in his glory.....right up until the musket demonstration.  Loud noises do not go over well in our family.

Off to the King's Gardens we headed to escape the firing of guns. 

 My real reason for wanting to visit the garden was to get ideas for my own garden. I loved this little section of the children's garden: the chairs are surrounded by sunflowers.  I am going to try really hard to convince Andy that we need this for next year. 

Just before crossing back into Vermont we stopped at Crown Point State Park, another war site overlooking the lake.  It was supposed to be a quick walk around the ruins stop, but when I realized that the keys were locked in the car, it became longer then expected stop, while Andy drove an hour to get the keys out of our car.  They have a very cute inexpensive museum with a 15 minute video that you can watch, that was not all that bad.  A quick summary the French Built: a fort they later burned to the ground so the British would not get it, the British built a much larger impressive fort, and then during the Revolutionary war the colonists stormed it stealing all the artillery and shipping it to Boston, thus winning the Revolutionary War.  Or if you would rather, there are some really cool ruins at this site that are fun to walk around.

 

After looking at every possible thing we could at Crown Point, we walked across the road to a really cool lighthouse.  Cool, but a little on the high above the ground make your heart jump side.  Don't be fooled by the calm face on Little Man in the picture, once the picture was snapped, he quickly went back into the lighthouse.

 

Despite needing to be rescued by Daddy, we had a wonderful day and I am glad we went.  Even the wait was not all that bad, it gave us a chance to explore a little more than I had planned on.