Lake George NY

We're usually lucky to visit Lake George New York several times a year; Craig is from the area, and yet we've (gasp!) never reported to you on its access...
LG is a lovely little town tucked into the bottom corner of the Adirondack Park Reserve, an hour north of Albany, and neighboring Vermont. The lake itself is 32 miles long and an impressive site in itself with clear cool water that freezes every winter. Discovered in the mid 1600s, Lake George is rich with early settlers' and early US military history including the battle of Lake George in 1755 and was dubbed the most beautiful lake that Thomas Jefferson had ever seen.
There's plenty to do in the area that's accessible, including taking a ride with the Lake George Steamboat Company, and the usual lake and nearby mountain activities like fishing, hiking, camping, mini golf and golf, kayaking and boating, and of course shopping in "the village."

My first visit to the area was for Craig's sister's wedding in 2001, and I must include this is an absolutely lovely destination-wedding location. But what endears me, a non-yank, to the area has been the peacefulness of the community in general. The views across the wide placid lake are of the surrounding mountain range, the roads are winding and secluded, and the locals are just like ours, with that small town feel, super nice and out for a good time. Then again, I've never been in July. I hear it's pretty crazy-full of tourists, but we're quite used to that in Steamboat!

Two historic forts are located on either end of the town, Fort Ticonderoga to the north end, and Fort William Henry to the south with loud and colorful re-enactments of past historic battles.

Don't miss nearby Bolton Landing, even cuter than Lake George, which is home to the Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course and the Lake Georg Kayak Company which offers some options for people with disabilities!

Ironically, it was quite hard for us to find access information online at any of the websites we searched, so you can wager we'll be making an impact in that arena if we can!

To view picture of Lake George, click here, we'll be adding to our fall album while we're there from May 13-19!

Colorado Trains and Accessibility

Colorado has some of the greatest narrow-gauge and peak-climbing railroads in the country. Despite their historic status, all have been equipped with accessibility to the tee! Perfect 1-day or 2-day trips from Denver, the state’s top three trains are located in Colorado Springs, Durango, and Antonito at the border of New Mexico.

Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, Antonito

Open May 23 to October 18 this year, this “living museum” dates back to 1880 and was part of the Rio Grande Railway, serving the silver mining distric in the San Juan mountains. The train use diminished considerably between 1920 and 1960 and the tracks were nearly abandoned and dismantled in 1969. But a local movement to save the railroad brought in monies and tourists to the area, sustaining the railroad since then. The ride is 64 miles long, from Chama to Antonito, and has several departures a day. It dubs itself “America’s longest and highest steam-operated train” and has wheelchair lifts up to the accessible coaches.

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and Museum, Durango

Open May 2 through October 31 this year, this beautiful scenic ride is along the Animas River from Durango to Silverton and offers motorcoach rides back if you don’t want another 3-hour ride through the canyon. Also dating back to the 1880s with the Rio Grande Railway, the train faced many challenges with physical and financial stability and risked losing part of its tracks during war eras when monies and focus was elsewhere. Registered as historic in the 1960s, and given additional attention from filming Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969, the narrow gauge gained momentum for tourism and has been sustained by it since then. The fully coal-steam operated train has an accessible car with restroom and a motorized lift mechanism to get you in.

Pike’s Peak Cog Railway, Colorado Springs

Just an hours drive from Denver, this is the only train in the state open year round, and climbs the old carriage road from the 1880s to the top of this 14,000 foot peak which is the site for the inspiration of the song “America the Beautiful.” The train climbs up from 6500 feet and 9 miles for a three hour round-trip. A big red warning of altitude sickness fills one of the pages on their website, and is to be taken seriously by those who have traveled from sea-level locations. The train stops at the top for 30 minutes of views and snacking before returning down, and has a roll-in entry and accessible bathroom in both the depot and the summit house but not on the train.

This post was duplicated from our Examiner's page, please check it out!

Colorado Adaptive Travel Examiner

For those who haven't heard of The Examiner, it's a vast network of writers who have been hand-picked for their specialty by a team of experienced editors in your nearest-city location; ours for example is Denver.

Access Anything was recently accepted as the Colorado Adaptive Travel Examiner, and we've begun posting articles, and will post 3-4 per week. Based on the concept that everyone is an expert is something, Examiner posts include 25 categories from Arts to Travel, and then multiple sub categories under those- such as under PETS, Denver has a Horse Training, Dog Rescue, Green Pets, and Pet Health Examiner writing articles on their expertise topics.

The articles we've posted so far include Adaptive Recreation in Colorado, Colorado Camping in a Wheelchair, and One of the Oldest Hotels in Colorado is also Accessible; and one to post soon on Handcycling.

You can sign up as a feed through RSS to be notified when our articles post. We hope you make use of this free information location!

Accessible Travel Groups on the Internet

As part of creating the Spring issue our quarterly (look for it next week!) we began gathering a list of online groups, networks, and people you should hook up with. Today's age is all about networking; so this topic has made our blog today as well. To clarify, this post isn't about social networking, although it might look like it, it's about social networking in a group setting with a specific topic in mind.

WHY?
Why join a travel group? For us it's a no-brainer to join as many groups as we can to help us cut costs, find information, meet great people and live vicariously on another continenent! For some, keeping up with many networks can cost the precious time you seem to lack, so here are a few great places to start. For those of you looking to start your own group, drop in on some of these first to get ideas, but joining an existing network seemed much better to us than creating our own.

LinkedIn
We both held off on really diving in to the LinkedIn network until recently, but what drove us home on the concept of adding yet another social network to our gamut was LinkedIn's groups. You get an email of the ongoing discussions (you pick how often), and you can meet professionals who are in the same field or work at a company you'd like to connect with. In general, it's a much more focused business network than the others you're hearing about like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and the like. LinkedIn's groups are where it's at! You must first join LinkedIn to be in a group, and then you do have to request permission to be in a group once you find one, but so far neither of us have been rejected from a group. We both belong to many groups on various topics, but the only group we've found so far for Accessible Travel on LinkedIn is here. If you do join this network, make sure to network with us as well! [Andy's and Craig's pages]

Facebook
The best part of Facebook for networking are the fan and causes pages, the second of which you can actually raise money with. These social networks can be daunting, but they're excellent for networking once you get the hang of the concept in general. If you're already on Facebook, check out some of our favorite pages, causes, etc in the world of Accessible Travel: Access Anything, Wounded Warrior Project, Adaptive Adventures, All Mountain Ski Camp, Venture Travel, but there are hundreds more. This is a wonderful social network, don't put off joining us there.

Accessible.Travel
Created by colleague Craig Grimes, Accessible Travel is a NING network (a do-it-yourself social networking tool) is growing exponentially as I type. Unlike some NING networks, Craig's left this one open for all and anyone is invited. Chockfull of blogs, destinations, suggestions, and members with the same thirst for travel that we have, we're excited to help grow this network for sharing information on accessible travel! Within this group there are additional groups like Rail Travel for a more focused forum.

What Else?
We also belong to My Steamboat for fans of this ski area, several Twitter Groups that are focused on various topics of what we do, Disaboom, and The Wheel Life. However, you'll have to dig a little further to find Accessible Travel topics at these locations.

If you have a group you'd like to include, please share it in a comment to this post.

2009 Steamboat STARS of Tomorrow Video

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