Crown Point State Historic Site

Plattsburgh, NY to Rutland, VT | Visiting Crown Point State Historic Site | April 2023

The morning after Charlotte’s appointment in Burlington was honestly really difficult. We woke up in our hotel room in Plattsburgh, and it was clear that Charlie was in a lot of pain. She snapped at us when we tried to give her eye drops or take her outside, which was totally out of character for her and we knew was only because of the pain. And so we asked for a late check out, and just hung out in the room letting her sleep until noon. From here we had about 2 hours of driving to get to our Airbnb for the next week in Rutland, and we could check in at 4, so we would just need to find a way to kill 2 hours while not putting too much stress on Charlie. At this point, it was so hard to think that we had to wait 3 whole days for the surgery when she was hurting this much.

When 12:00 rolled around, it was time to leave the hotel. Curtis scooped Char up to take her outside, and thankfully we weren’t met by her snapping at us again. In fact, as soon as we got her outside, she immediately started sniffing around and checking out the parking lot, and we ended up letting her lead us on a short walk up the road in Plattsburgh. We realized that, while we definitely needed to take it as easy as possible for her comfort, it was also important to take her for walks and let her still have the activities that she enjoys. Glaucoma is a horrible disease and we’re so sad that it was the hand that Charlotte was dealt, but we’re determined to make sure that the only thing it takes from her is her vision. Because let’s be honest, her vision has never been her strongest sense!

After our first short walk, we got on the road heading South. We took the scenic route along Lake Champlain rather than taking the interstate. For our one stop along the way, we drove to Crown Point State Historic Site off of NY-185 right before crossing into Vermont. Once again, we decided to let Charlotte determine how much walking we would do, and she seemed interested in walking around the fort — just at her very pokey pace, sniffing every blade of grass. We figured we could work on more training post-surgery when she was feeling better, and for today it was fine to enjoy walking through the park at a snail’s pace.

Historically, Crown Point was well situated to control maritime trade along Lake Champlain, being located at the beginning of ‘the Narrows’. The French first built a fort here (Fort Saint Frederic) in 1731, but this fort was burned and captured by the British and American colonists during the French and Indian War. The British then built an enormous earthwork fort, the largest to be built in the U.S., on the same site, which, along with Fort Ticonderoga, would have been the first line of defense in a French Canadian Invasion. But after the defeat of the French, and the Treaty of Paris, Canada was firmly within the bounds of the British Empire, the risk of invasion evaporated, and the fort was reduced to a minimal guard. The guard was so understaffed that even a month after Lexington and Concord, the Green Mountain Boys under Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold were able to capture the fort and Fort Ticonderoga with only about 100 irregulars. After sending most of the cannon and artillery from the forts to General Knox in Boston, Arnold used Crown Point as his base of operations in his failed attempt to invade Quebec in 1776. The fort was abandoned to the British during the Saratoga campaign, but ultimately saw no further action and was never used by the fledgling Republic and ultimately fell into ruin.

After our walk around and through the fort, we had a picnic inside a pavillion and Charlotte sniffed all around the picnic tables looking for food scraps like she always does. Finally, we got back in the car and finished our drive, crossing the bridge into Vermont and then heading East and South to Rutland. We picked up some groceries for the week at Aldi, and made a few modifications to the rental to make it more blind-dog friendly, such as moving furniture up against walls as much as possible and setting up Charlie’s things in easy-to-find places. She showed us right away that she is still totally capable of jumping up on furniture, especially when it comes to begging for our food. We knew we still had a hard week ahead of us, but we were thankful to have a cozy apartment in a peaceful area to relax in and enjoy.