This is a blast from the past. Fort Ticonderoga. In 2013 Cory and I wanted to get away for a bit. We didn't have much money and decided we would go on a road trip up through New York and New England to Maine, and back again.
Cory was adamant that we had so see a bunch of historical sites along the way. While they were all important to him, he seemed to be the most excited about seeing Fort Ticonderoga. Cory kept telling me that the fort played a pivotal role in several military campaigns during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. He went on and on about Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, Last of the Mohicans and whatever. He explained that the fort's construction was supposed to be a great representation of the colonial era, bastioned fortresses, with a moat and everything.
Meanwhile I was sort of skeptical as to whether this fort would be all it was cracked up to be. When we got there and walked to the entrance of the fortress, I was kind of impressed at how imposing it was and how preserved it was. We had been to several "forts" before, and these were little more than impressions on a landscape. Fort Duquense for instance was just an outline of where the fort used to be in modern Pittsburgh.
Fort Ticonderoga, however, looked as if it was still in use. It is situated on a hill and has a commanding view of Lake George, protecting the approach to New York City from French or British Army's coming south from Canada. Just standing on the fortress walls lined with cannons, you get a sense of what it would take to hold or capture such a place. I am still not sure I can mentally piece together the historical timeline of the fort in my mind. Still it is an impressively imposing structure on the landscape. We ended up having a great time here and we ate in the little cafe just outside the fort overlooking Lake George. Afterward we took the the ferry across the lake, into Vermont, and on to another historical site I had no idea about, either way we had fun.
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