La Portes in New York and Vermont

Frequently, I see my "North Country" La Porte relatives drifting over to Vermont and then returning.  Sometimes, they meander further east to New Hampshire.  Without an appreciation for that part of the country's geography, its easy to miss the challenge of getting from New York to Vermont.

These days, you just take the ferry from Port Kent to Burlington, Plattsburgh to Grand Isle, or Essex to Charlotte.

We would do this with some frequency when we visited my La Porte grandparents (Lloyd and Jennie (Rock)) in Plattsburgh.  Load up Grandpa's car as well as our own and away we'd go.  No one really did it cooler than my big brother Dave.













But I cannot help but wonder what the crossing was like in the middle or later part of the 19th century when, among others, my 2nd Great Grandfather Moses made the trek well beyond Vermont and New Hampshire to work in a Lumber Camp near Ludlow, Massachusetts.

I don't imagine that anyone logged into "www.ferries.com" and booked a trip. Then again, the presence of water could have made at least that leg of the journey that much smoother than a completely overland trek. I just don't know. It could not have been easy nor could they have been near as happy as I seem to be here, making that crossing:

Of course, a good deal of that happiness could be due to the amazing (in-all-likelihood-homemade-by-my-mom) Planet of the Apes, iron-on t-shirt!!