We woke up in our little hotel outside of Quebec, took advantage of the continental breakfast and got out of there before 9 am. We had another 4 hour drive to our last big stop... The Adirondacks!
I am asked a lot how the kids do in the car. I have to say very good for kids! Of course they fight and whine, here and there but we try to ignore it for the most part. Also, Audiobooks and snacks are a big key! What usually happens is that the kids will be on their Kindle for 45-60 minutes (I usually get them a new game the night before a long road trip), we then turn those off and listen to an audiobook for at least 30 minutes. Finn claims that he doesn't like Narnia but he still listens and quietly colors. When we stop to get gas and the kids have been good since the last rest stop they can each get a treat at the gas station. Also, this time we played a bunch of games such as Road Bingo and Mad Libs. Our entire road trip was a little over 40 hours driving time both ways and yes it was hard some parts with the boys, but it really was worth it and we try to make the journey part of our trip, and not just the destination.
Before we arrived at the Adirondacks, we had to cross back in the US and also exchange our money.
I am kicking myself a little that I don't have any pictures from where we picked up our kayaks. We rented the tandem kayaks for 3 days from St. Regis Outfitters in Saranac Lakes. The staff was amazing and they answered all of our questions (and the boys had a lot of them). They transported us to the boat ramp and even provided us with a map. It really was a great experience and we highly recommend them. I know we will be back one day!
We booked a campsite on Saranac Lake which was on a peninsula and only accessible by boat/ kayak. We chose a campsite (actually when we booked it was almost full) near the boat ramp but not too close. It was about a 20 minute paddle to get to the campsite and of course we had to load all of our gear into the kayak. We actually ended up having to make two trips.
The campsite was amazing! We stayed at #56. Each campsite has a large fire pit and an outhouse, which was surprisingly clean but still scary to me haha I have a thing about outhouses but that's another story. I made Scot sit in front of it whenever I needed to use it.
The kids went swimming and the water was pretty warm. They loved jumping off this smaller rock and we all enjoyed watching people across the lake jump from a much higher cliff.
Scot and I decided not to go swimming but just enjoyed ourselves relaxing and watching the boys.
The great thing about this campsite was that we had a huge area for ourselves. There was no one around. The kids were free to explore, swim and be loud as they wanted.
In the evening we all were tired and just really relaxed. We all took turns in the hammock.
Scot made us a great Spaghetti dinner.
This little guy followed us around the campsite on out first day there.... no wonder after Scot fed him :/
We made a huge fire, with sticks and leftover firewood from a previous camper. The mosquito's up there were really minimal and they only really came out at night but not even where it was too bad.
After using up most of our wood and playing enough with the fire, we all went to bed happy and relaxed.