Lake George
It's been exactly a year since we went to Lake George, and I'm already feeling nostalgic. I've shared some photos from the mini diner tour we took on the drive up (here and here), the life-changing Magic Forest (including a Snow White exhibit of questionable provenance and many Muffler Men) and the excellent mini-golf scene, but Lake George is packed full of so many additional delights.
We stayed in the cutest little A-frame cottage at the Amber Lantern Motel, proving my theory that any hotel that uses classic plastic key tags (see also the Wiltshire Motel and the Wigwam Village) is an excellent choice. The first morning we ate breakfast at the Prospect Mountain Diner, and we liked it so much that we came back two more times. They had jukeboxes at each table and served a waffle topped with fresh apples that was so good I'm still dreaming about it a year later.
Lake George is located in the Adirondacks region of upstate NY, and our trip wouldn't have been complete without spotting at least one Adirondack chair—luckily they were all over town, including on the porch of our cottage, lined up across from the lake and we even found an oversized one, cementing Lake George as the kitschy summer destination of my dreams.
The area is bursting with vintage roadside charm, from cozy woodland cottages to 60s motels, the neon and signage is top-notch. We had soft-serve cones as big as our heads and cheesesteaks from Martha's Dandee Creme, saw Inside Out at the Glen Drive-In and somehow checked everything off my must-do list in just a few days.
We drove to the top of Mount Prospect, threw skeeballs and tried our luck at the shooting gallery, shopped for souvenirs at Gift World—still using decades-old cloth shopping baskets—visited the Mystery Spot and tried out its bizarre acoustics and drove by one of the last remaining Howard Johnson's restaurants (the horrible reviews scared us away from actually eating there). I said it when we first arrived, but I believe it even more a year later—Lake George is a magical place.