At the very top of New York state, Rouses Point is where Lake Champlain gives out and the border takes over. The village is small and tidy, with a marina, a bridge across the lake to Vermont, and a Canadian town, Lacolle, about ten kilometres to the north. The lake here is wide, grey-blue and breezy, with the Green Mountains lined up faintly on the eastern horizon and the Adirondacks behind you. After the long ride up the shore, this is the place the road runs out of room.
The best story is the fort. Right by the bridge stands the massive stone Fort Montgomery, started in the 1840s to guard the lake route to New York. The trouble was that when builders began, the border survey had a mistake: the fort was on the Canadian side. It was nicknamed Fort Blunder, and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 finally settled the line, putting the site on the American side. The walls are crumbling now, and you can admire the stonework from the road. Lake Champlain has been a highway for Native peoples, French explorers, and armies in the Revolution and the War of 1812, and the water along this passage still feels like a corridor.
For the rider, the route through here is flat, quick and farm-edged, a fine finish to a ride that has threaded along the shore. The road runs through cornfields and orchards, with the odd view of the lake, and the wind off the water can be stiff. Expect cooler air than inland, and fog on autumn mornings. Summer afternoons are lovely, and the evening light on the water is the reward for coming this far. In winter the area gets brutal cold and snow, so this is a May to October ride.
Rouses Point has small-town services: a few places to eat, a bakery or two, and a marina with a view. For fuel, the village should have a pump or two, though Saint Albans in Vermont, about thirty kilometres away across the lake, is the bigger option.
If you have your passport, you could roll up to the border and consider your options. If not, turn around, sit by the water for ten minutes, and think about how many boats have come this way.