Adirondack Family Time™

Once again Smithsonian magazine is offering a FREE museum pass for participating museums. In the Adirondack Park that includes the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake and the 1932/1980 Olympic Museum in Lake Placid and Adirondack History Center , Elizabethtown. This pass is good for two people. Enjoy!

Young visitor at the wheel of Lois McClure ©Lake Champlain Maritime Museum By Diane Chase Part of the Farm, Forestry and Fishery Tour, the 88' wooden schooner Lois McClure and Urger tugboat will offer free tours from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 on October 15-16 at the Crown Point Pier. This tour has been raising awareness of the importance of "sustainable agriculture, responsbile foresty and clean, healthy waterways."

By Diane Chase The Goodsell Museum in Old Forge is free to the public and open all year. Visit the Floating Letters exhibit until October 31 st  or enjoy the other items that provide an historical blueprint of the area. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. At the Goodsell Museum children are encouraged to mix and mingle throughout the various exhibits. On the ground floor there are glass cases and cordoned-off taxidermy animals but a pack basket set to the side is marked with a yellow circle, handprint and “OK.”. Children know anything marked with that symbol is fair game. My children examine all the animal pelts gingerly and even try on a few fox collars. Upstairs they examine some medical equipment in a different “please touch box.”  

The Adirondack History Center Museum in Elizabethtown is open for the season.  2011 Admission: Adults $5.00, Seniors $4.00, Students $2.00,  6 and under are free. One  highlight of the visit is to climb to the top of the adjacent fire tower. This particular steel tower was reconstructed from two different fire towers. At the top we can see all around the village of Elizabethtown and surrounding mountains.

Click here for the rest of the schedule for Plattsburgh's FREE Museum Day

By Diane Chase Tucked in the lower level of the Saranac Lake Free Library is “the finest collection of Adirondack animals ever gathered in one place.” These animals are not wild anymore or even tame for that matter. The   Charles Dickert Wildlife Collection   is a one-room museum dedicated to the works of taxidermist, Charles Dickert. Read more 

The renovated barns at the Almanzo Wilder Homestead Farmer Boy!

Children under 13 are free until September 7th at the Adirondack Museum . Adults wishing to get the same experience can go online for a $2.00 off coupon. (On the front page, lower right corner of the website is a blue box titled "Special Offer." Keep in mind that all admissions are valid for a second visit within a one-week period. For those year-round residents of the Adirondack Park the museum is open free of charge during the months of May, June and October. Proof of residency, such as a driver's license, is required.

Big Tupper has teamed with The Wild Center , the Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks. Anyone purchasing a ticket to the Wild Center or a day lift ticket for Big Tupper will get a free day pass to the other venue. The free ticket is good for up to two weeks. I am a fan of Big Tupper. Literally, a fan. I clicked on the Facebook flag and became a fan of the little mountain that could. I have been swept along with all the momentum of hearing about and have friends (this time real ones not just Facebook) that have spent time getting the mountain open. With all the computer progress updates and conversation, I have yet to ski there. My family has been able to go but it seems that my own family time has its work conflicts like any one else’s. Ironic isn’t it? To write about family activities but to then send the family off to enjoy so that I can work. My children assure me that they will report back in detail any discoveries from their ski outing at Big Tupper. Before I regale you wit...

My children greet Stan Burdick, director of the Ticonderoga Cartoon Museum like he is the cable man and just offered free access to unlimited channels. They look at me like I am the only thing holding them back from nirvana. I brought them here. It is not the same thing as blankly sitting in front of a television though I stop short of telling them that. I shush them off making sure they carefully maneuver through the aisles. This museum is the result of Stan Burdick’s 50-year collection of cartoon memorabilia. A political cartoonist himself, Burdick contributed to many local newspapers during his career. His work has been selected numerous times for the annual publication, “Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year” and in 1996 he won the New York Press Association Award for his editorial cartoon of Eliot Spitzer. The museum houses over 700 pieces of original art from mainstream cartoonists like Chuck Jones’ Bugs Bunny, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, and Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury to the m...

The last weekends are approaching for the Historic Saranac Lake walking tour. The 45-minute walk may be a stretch for the very young so for my excursion, I indulge in some alone time. Mary Hotaling, now the Architectural Historian, leads my tour. We meet at the bridge overlooking Lake Flower and from then on local facts and history are dropping like rain. Thankfully Hotaling encourages questions, thrives on them actually. I won’t give a blow-by-blow because taking the tour and then going to the museum is half the fun. Even for someone born and raised in the area would find some interesting tidbits in Saranac Lake’s multidimensional past. The tour is only available one more week, October 9 at 11:00 a.m. at Harrietstown Town Hall, for a small $5.00 donation. It is worth a walk around town to see how an industry arose from an illness. As we walk Main Street I am slowly taken back in time as Hotaling peels away the various architecture to its bare bones and shares glimpses of empty field...

It is National Museum Day where museums around the country offer free admission. Where are you going to go today?

So it's not a real museum in the sense that you go inside but rather a living experience with adventures at every corner type of museum. This is the closing weekend of two weeks worth of events. For the price of a $10 button the Battle of Plattsburgh Society will have a host of events continuing through Sunday. If that isn't the museum of your choice New York Heritage Weekend will get you free admission to the Adirondack History Center Museum in Elizabethtown and Fort Ticonderoga this weekend as well as other museums all around New York State. Other children events in the area include Wilmington's Festival of Colors. This event is free! The event will take place from 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. at the tee-ball field on Springfield Road. Thirty vendors will be on hand displaying everything from local produce to homemade toys. Performers from Santa's Workshop will kick off the show at 10:00 a.m., followed by local band "Organized Chaos", then at 1:00 p.m. "Pips...

Assistant to the Curator Stephanie Pfaff leads us on a whirlwind tour of the Miner family in Chazy. It is astounding how one family could shape a community. She touches on some of the basics like Heart’s Delight Farm as an experiment in modern farming, starting a K-12 school that became the 1st centralized school, building a hospital, church and the Alice T Miner Museum. The unusual part of the museum is that Alice Miner had the museum specifically built to replicate a house to highlight how people lived in the mid 1800s. Her directive was to showcase American history. This isn’t a renovated building altered to fit the museum’s vision but a specific example to allow visitors a glimpse into the Colonial Revival time period. We are shown the downstairs sitting and formal rooms. The children are asked to identify various articles from the collection and play three guesses. For the first item my son guesses a spoon warmer correctly. His recent fondness for soup has him rethinking our tab...

We have a big day planned with all sorts of activities on the agenda. We have errands to run and want to squeeze in an end of season ski as we work our way to Tupper Lake. The last thing on the list is going to the Wild Center. As we head into town the kids start negotiating the length of their stay at the museum. What has become the last stop now becomes the first. The children are thrilled to get here. I am always amazed that each time we show up it is just as exciting. I guess that is why it is a living museum. It is constantly changing and growing. The children know the way so our jackets are stowed, the movie times checked and the game plan discussed. My plan is to relax and have a cup of coffee. The kids are old enough now to be on their own for certain lengths of time. I take a seat behind the tables set up for the Family Art and Nature Project and under a “green intentions” exhibit. People have written on bits of cloth clipped to branches how they plan on living a greener life....

I do not know what is in store for me for Mother’s Day. That is the point, I guess. To let the wee ones hatch elaborate plans that involve waking me at 4:00 a.m. with tea and toast. They have hatched some sort of plan, the two of them and have been hiding things from me. At first I thought it was more sticky candy wrappers I occasionally find under the couch or perhaps an accidental spill cleaned up with my best tea towels. After a small slip of the tongue I have been led to believe that it may be something a little bit more. My son is itching to tell me what he has planned. When he comes to hug me he always mentions how he loves giving surprises as much as getting them. Then he follows with a few hints. It is not alive. (Whew! I am a bit alarmed when presented with the gift of life in the manner of snakes or ant farms.) I can’t eat it; which may be a mixed blessing. I can’t wear it; so I am assuming that I am going somewhere. For anyone wishing for ideas the Wild Center in Tupper Lak...