Lola and Pepe (Lauren and Lorenzo) in the News

Lake Placid: A Learning Winter Wonderland

Although my family had fantasized returning to the warm beaches of Mexico for our February break, we eventually opted to enjoy the awsome winter season here in the Northeast. We knew that we wanted to ski but I was hoping to go somewhere different as well as a place where we could all learn something new. Lake Placid came highly recommended by my cross country ski pal Jennifer Saffran who provided me with copious emails and web site links on all the great activities we would find there. I got Olympic fever, made my reservation and started planning our week. I had also been to the 1980 Olympics to see the 50KM men's cross country ski race won by Nikolay Semyonovich Zimyatov, one of the most successful Soviet/Russian male cross-country skiers ever. He was the first man in the sport to win three gold medals at a single Winter Olympics, winning in the 30 km, 50 km, and 4 x 10 km relay at the 1980 Lake Placid Games. Needless to say, I was curious to return to this historic trail

We spent an entire week and had a great time in this charming Olympic Village that hosted the 1932 and 1980 Olympics. We rented a spacious condo with a sauna, jacuzzi and mountain views right on the golf course. If your family loves winter sports, then this is a great destination to inspire them to take any winter sport they love to the next level.

The first thing we did was to buy an olympic passport that allowed us free entry to many of the olympic venues and some great discounts on events. With our passport we did following:

1. Toured the Olympic Stadium and museum and enjoyed many historic film clips including Eric Heiden winning his 5th gold medal and the US Hockey team win against Russia
2. Took a gondola to the top of Whiteface Mountain, the Olympic Mountain, to enjoy amazing views of the Adirondacks
3. Toured the Bobsled run and watched old film clips and current insane athletes travel over 60mph down a mile course in under one minute
4. Lorenzo and Valentina actually had a ride on the Olympic track in a real bobsled (with two drivers) they made it to 55 mph!
5. Toured the 150 ft ski jump ( an elevator goes to the top) and watch more insane athletes fly like birds
6. Skated for hours (and over 60 laps, we counted!) around the Olympic oval where Heiden won his historic 5 medals. Valentina proclaim as she tries to skate like the pros: I love this, maybe I can win a gold medal someday!

In addition to the getting our passport stamped, we cross country skied for three days Van Hovenburg and Cascade Cross country ski center where we played "hide and ski" on their maze of easy and charming trails and had a delicious lunch in sun filled lodge. We also enjoyed a chilly dog sled ride across Mirror Lake, sledded down long golf course runs, bowled at Bowlwinkles (5 year-old Luca won!) and hiked through High Falls Gorge where we roasted marshmellows along the rushing river and learned all about the fascinating geology and history of the gorgeous Adirondack Region. That evening we spent watching a great movie about the history of the Olympics.

As you can tell by my other posts, I am a huge cross country ski fan so, as my son claims, I take sides easily and stand by my claim that cross country is one of the healthiest, most amazingly beautiful lifetime sports one can participate in. Aside from the fact that the sport killed and keeps stressing my knees, downhill skiing is an outrageously expensive family sport, especially if you only ski occasionally. One adult family member's downhill ticket costs the same as our entire family cross country skiing for two days. OK stop me here! Downhill is a FUN family sport that gets everyone smiling so we took the gang to Whiteface which was very vertical, windy, cold and icy. They had the snow makers going everywhere to ready the mountain for school vacation week (thanks for telling us). The loud noise and snow blowing everywhere made the skiing unsettling and more treacherous for lack of visibility. There were lots of ski patrols and folks in stretchers. Needless to say, our first day skiing there did not leave me with a lasting impression about this mountain.

Since Lorenzo prefers the downhill thrill (Valentina has been converted to cross country), I agreed to give it another chance and offered Lorenzo and Valentina the chance to take snowboarding lessons on our last day in Lake Placid. For an hour I stood in various lines, settled the gang into boarding lessons and equipment, left Luca and Mauro on the magic carpet and fled back to Van Hovenburg where I had two hours and 15 KM of cross country skiing bliss. I then returned to downhill ski half day with everyone on the easier kid friendly zone just as the big flakes started coming down. Lots of "watch me mom" and "come do the jumps with me mom", "check out the snowflakes on your goggles mom!" OK, you'll get me on another chair soon. It was a lovely snowy icing on our wonderful week. Both snow bunnies did great on snowboards and both may opt boarding over downhill. Luca is improving his "pizza" all the time and holds his own down any beginner slope. Mauro does OK for a guy who never saw snow until he was 28 and did not start skiing until 2 years ago.

As far as eats go, we mostly cooked pasta plus at our condo and ate our share of peanut butter and nutella, GORP and fruit but we did have three excellent dining experiences. For our arrival first night we had a great meal at Lisa G's where we played pool while we waited for a very nice meal, on Monday we had dinner with friends from the area who recommended simple fare at The Cottage, right on the Mirror Lake but our favorite meal by far was the Caribbean Cowboy, a small "hip" charming bistro off the main drag.

Before we left on Saturday, we returned to Van Ho (what the locals call it) where we had a couple more hours of skiing before we jumped into the car to drive home and enjoy the lasting views of a gorgous region....bye bye Lake Placid, we will be back!!