I knew it was going to be an unusual vacation because of the clown. Driving on Route 87 North toward upstate New York, my daughter observed from the seat behind me, “There was a clown in that car we just passed.” “In full clown costume?” I inquired, and when she confirmed as much, I decided this was something I had to see for myself.
The car in question was a bit of a jalopy, which seemed fitting, and it was traveling slowly in the rightmost of two highway lanes. I got into the right lane myself, figuring I’d slow down and let him catch up, then move aside and allow him to pass, getting a good view in the process.
I was driving a good 20mph below the speed limit, but he was barely gaining on me. Traffic whizzed by in the left lane while I checked in the rear view mirror every few seconds, but no matter how much I slowed down, he seemed to maintain or increase his cushion of ten or fifteen car lengths behind me. I was embroiled in a reverse car chase, and I was losing.
After about ten minutes of me trying to get a look without stopping completely or endangering other motorists, he put his signal on, indicating he’d be getting off at the next exit. It was now or never, so I slowed to what felt like the speed of a brisk jog and watched as his car got closer and closer. As he peeled off to the exit ramp, I finally made eye contact, and he smiled and waved a big, goofy, clown wave at me.
He was alone, wigged, white-faced and red-nosed, in an old beat-up Jeep, and while having only one clown in a clown car seemed like a violation of the clown code of conduct, the smile and wave were disarming enough that I didn’t report him, even as I envisioned clown police pulling him over and taking him to clown jail.
After a detour that included a rafting trip at the Ausable Chasm (“The Grand Canyon of the Adirondacks”), as well as a hike on the Adirondack Poke-O-Moonshine trail and a nerve-wracking climb up the hundred year old fire tower at its summit, we checked into the house we’d rented in Lake Placid, which was also over a hundred years old. (The host of the house, a woman who walked strangely because one leg was shorter than the other, was approaching the century mark, too.)
The house was comfortable, but also a prime setting for a horror movie: a dark, elegant dining room with a long table; a bedroom decorated with creepy dolls; a basement with a huge, ancient boiler that resembled a cremator, plus what looked to be an old coal depository, empty except for a single chair. Most of all, there was the closet we dubbed “The Naughty Room.”
The Naughty Room had no windows and a musty odor, but had been furnished with a pink chair, a small pink table, and children’s crayons and coloring books. If that was all there was, it would be easy to envision this as a child’s ideal secret hideaway—but then there was the matter of the graffiti. Illumination provided by a bare bulb with a pull chain showed crayon writing in various colors, overlapping and covering the walls and ceiling.
There were lots of names, as one might expect, but also messages like, “SAVE US PLEASE” and “HELP ME.” The pleas of teenagers trapped on a boring family vacation, or creepy mementos of a Mommie Dearest situation that puts the “cruel” in “cruel and unusual” punishment?
The former, I’d guess, but despite this strangeness, we found Lake Placid to be very enjoyable. As the site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics, Lake Placid has a deep-rooted and enduring athletic legacy. To prime those of our group who were unfamiliar with the 1980 “Miracle on Ice,” we watched the 2004 film Miracle before visiting the Olympic Museum. At nearby Mount Van Hoevenberg, we watched bobsledders practice their starts and learned the ins and outs of “sliding sports” like bobsled, skeleton, and luge.
Visiting Lake Placid in summer doesn’t allow for skiing, but it does make some unusual sporting combinations possible, like aquabiking, kayaking, and swimming in Mirror Lake or Lake Placid itself, and just a few hours later ice skating in shorts on the 1932 Olympic rink. We were turned away from participating in a sold-out curling session, an ice sport that apparently fascinates more than just my family. All the more reason to return one day.
The trip, and our activities, got me thinking about some potential—and yes, unusual—Olympic events I’d love to see. Tube Jumping (or Tube Diving) would involve leaping into water and passing through the hole in the center of a common inflatable tube, with points awarded for vertical and horizontal distance traveled and for minimizing contact with the tube, not to mention style points for flips, twists, etc.
The Olympics could also benefit from the addition of Bumper Car Aqua Bikes, Ice Skating Roller Derby, and Challenge Eating, the latter inspired by my fun, filling, but ultimately failed attempt to conquer The Gondola Pasta Challenge—three large chicken cutlets on a bed of pasta and a giant piece of bread, at The Twisted Raven restaurant in Wilmington, New York.
On the way home, the “unusual” theme reared its head again as we visited Frontier Town, a Wild West theme park in North Hudson, NY that was abandoned in 1998. Many of the buildings are still intact, if one allows for a loose interpretation of that term. If an old chapel with moss and bushes growing out of its roof, or deserted covered bridges and stables are your thing, it’s well worth a visit.
The usual blends in as part of everyday life, while the unusual stands out in experience and memory. For example, if that slow-driving clown had reappeared in Frontier Town, it would be highly unusual, and the image might have seared itself into my brain permanently. Thankfully, he didn’t—and for now, it’s back to the “usual” grind.
