How about some Saratoga Springs... New York?

[Groucho]

Our little family was in Saratoga Springs, NY for a conference at the beginning of the month, and since it was the inspiration for the Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, there is a Disney connection.

Here some architecture along the main drag... some of which is reflected in the design of the Disney version.

I thought the parking signs were cute...

I visited Congress Park a couple times, I'm sure it's a bit more vibrant in the summer but it was still fun. Here's the carousel, closed for the season. (At least, closed when we were there!)

The park did seem a bit unkempt, but it fit in with the autumn season.

The park has many small building replicas on poles. Some are birdhouses, some have security cameras in the bottom, some are just decoration, like this one, which is one of the more ornate ones. This is a replica of the Casino in Congress Park.

Here's the one for High Rock Spring (whose name is used for a pool at SSR):

The ducks in the ponds were very eager for a handout - they'd get nothing from us, though! But they did make for good photo material.

Of course, there are several springs around the town... here's one of the ones in Congress Park. (I have pics of High Rock Spring, also, but they're not online yet.)

A couple pictures with my son (wearing his WDW outfit that keeps riding up his legs!) walking through the park.

I really like this one.

Hope you enjoyed and will forgive the not-quite-100% Disney content.

 

[liznboys]

Those are great, thank you for sharing them! And that is a cute picture of your son.

 

[PinkTink63]

Great Pics! Thanks for sharing!

 

[KarenAylwood]

Thanks so much for posting these! I grew up about 15 minutes from there (and worked at the Saratoga race track in the summertime! ). In high school we used to drive to downtown all the time because it was the closest Starbucks and I love the city. I'll be back for the holidays in December!!

Great pics!

 

[Groucho]

Thanks for the kind words!

Here's a couple more Disney-related (sorta)... the real High Rock Spring that Disney used as name for their pool. It's in a small park at the bottom of a hill, near a couple other springs.

And here's the spring itself. It's not so much to look, eh?

A nearby sign reads:
"Saratoga's first resort for travelers
called by the Mohawk Indians
"The Medicine Spring of the Great Spirit"
now known as
The High Rock Spring"
There's more, but you get the point. I assume that Disney picked this name for the historical purposes rather than it being particularly inspiring - but I'm no expert, so I'm just guessing.

On our way home, we stopped at Howe Caverns... I'll just toss in one pic from there for fun.

This was at 1600ISO on a manual focus 28mm 2.8 lens on my Pentax. I'm pretty happy with the noise levels at this ISO! It would have been nice to have had's the K100D's stabilization, though.

Larger (up to 1280x1024) versions of the pics (and many others from the trip) are on my new, very much under-construction site at www.totalsham.com if you want to see more detail or more pics.

 

[corinnak]

It is a cute springs, though clearly Disney saw fit to "Plus" it into a feature swimming pool! I especially love the photo of the outside of that building - it was clearly a source of inspiration.

I love Howe Caverns. My dad and I stopped there on a road trip one time and had a great tour. Do you have a photo of the wedding chapel or the "pipe organ" formation? I will never forget the guide we had badly humming the Star Spangled Banner in that pipe organ!

Your son is SUPER cute. My boys both loved to push their own strollers too.

 

[Groucho]

I probably have a photo of the pipe organ but many of my photos don't have humans in them for reference - so I had a hell of a time just figuring out which end is up in some of them! I took a number of "detail" photos - the best ones are on my site. (I need to add some descriptions of the pics on there.) One of them may be of the pipe organ but I'm not sure. Without a trained eye, many of them are just rock... rock... more rock...!

As for the wedding chapel - I took just one very blurry photo, as there was actually a wedding going on at the time! We were whisked past pretty quickly and with a manual focus lens using no flash, I just didn't have time to get a proper photo. You can see one of the men in a kilt in it, though, that might have gotten a little chilly down there!

As for my son, we are biased but we do think that he's amazingly cute. I have many better pictures of him, I'm sure he'll be in a few more pictures when we return from our trip in... 41 days... seems like a long ways away, I'm ready to leave now! And he REALLY needs that first hair cut that he's going to get there!

 

[emma'smom]

Anyone know if High Rock Springs has any relationship to High Rock Falls further up in the Adirondack Mountains? Do the Falls eventually lead to spring?