Vacation

I'm just got back from a vacation up at my parents home outside Buffalo. It's a rare thing for me to get up there at this time of year, which is too bad as there's really no better season to be there. Particularly with the hot and sunny weather they had this week. Nice to be out of the city. Particularly this spring when I've been feeling thoroughly worn down.

It's so easy to forget things when you're away. Like the fact that summer evenings last just a bit longer up there. Or how strongly it smells of freshly-mown grass and garden mulch on the bike ride to my father's office. Or how quiet it is. It's not that I have any desire to live in the suburbs, really. It's just that there are days when I'm so tired of living on top of people and below people and being jammed up against people on the subway every day. It's good to have a little space.

I helped clean out junk drawers and my bedroom and got a good bit of knitting and reading done. I swam laps for the first time in about eight years, took a class called Body Pump after which my legs were sore for three days, went running and rollerblading. Despite all the activity, it was the most relaxing vacation I've had in ages.

On my last day there my mother and I went to visit Forest Lawn, which is a large Victorian cemetery. It has lots of open green space, a creek running through it, and the graves of famous Buffalonians like Millard Fillmore. My mother and I had talked about going to see it for a few years and looked into taking a tour. They weren't running any until June though, so we just wandered around, semi-successfully avoiding a group of school children there on a field trip.

It turns out that it's a lovely place, but not exactly making the list of the most interesting cemeteries we've seen. It does, though, feel like exactly the sort of cemetery you'd expect to find in Buffalo. And it's hard to complain about taking a walk with family on a beautiful spring day.

And now I'm back in New York (after what was probably the least problem-beset flight into JFK I've ever been on) and on all sorts of post-vacation and pre-summer errands. But feeling much more equal to the many tasks at hand.

How I Spent My Weekend . . .

Unfortunately, my camera is broken so this picture was taken with my phone. The tall mountain in the center is, I believe, Marcy (as viewed from Basin). I don't think I've ever been so happy to get out of the city.

Adirondack Trip Part IV

The final day of my vacation was mostly spent on travel. We packed up the tent that morning, got pancakes at a diner, and headed down toward Saratoga Springs. I had insisted that we go apple picking on the trip since I don't get the opportunity very often, what with living in the city and not having a car.

It turned out to be a perfect day for picking, sunny and much warmer than it had been up in the Adirondacks. The orchard we went to only had a few sections open, but the section they sent us to was the oldest part of the orchard, full of lovely, gnarled old trees, branches positively drooping with apples. We picked McIntosh's, which I turned into applesauce a couple weeks ago since they get soft quickly, and Macouns, which I just used to make a pie a couple days ago.
They also had Red Delicious apples available, and while they looked very nice I think they're basically a useless apple that is only popular because it ships well to supermarkets, so I skipped out on those.

After that all that remained was the train ride home to New York. The train ride from Saratoga to New York goes along the side of the Hudson--beautiful under any circumstances but particularly gorgeous at sunset.

All in all, a wonderful trip.

Adirondack Trip Part III

I'm incredibly behind on my blogging of late. It's not because I've been all that busy; it's because I've had the attention span of a fruit fly lately. I have a bunch of posts in various stages of completion but writing has just seemed like a real effort this past week or so. Therefore, here's one that required next to no writing since it's all pictures.

We didn't have any solid plans for Monday (this was the 6th). We knew we wanted to do some dinky little hike and then find someplace to walk along the water. Since we didn't need an early start we bagan the day by showering (a little cold for wet hair, and while my father informs me that the men's showers actually had decent water pressure, the women's were not so big on that and I had soap in my hair until Wednesday night), eating breakfast, making lunch, and drinking tea (or at least I drank tea, not really my dad's thing). Of course, well before I got up my father, early-riser extraordinaire had been awake for some time and taking pictures of Heart Lake. He actually got some better ones the next day but I don't have those on my computer. Still, here's the lake all glassy in the early morning with water vapor rising above it.

I, on the other hand, just kept him waiting later on while taking pictures of wet leaves.

The first thing we did that morning was hike up Owl's Head. Which is a lot of bang for your buck what with being extremely easy and short. That was good, because short and easy is about all I could handle.

We ate lunch by the Ausable River.

And then went to a campsite my father and sister had stayed at a few times so that my father could play with his camera.

And that was the end of anything particularly hike-y for this trip. We went to Lake Placid for the rest of the day.

I went into their library for the first time, at my father's insistence and it is, as he told me, surprisingly big and really very nice. It's all rocking chairs and wood floors and local art. Very quaint. Given that the library I spend the most time in--as in, only the amount of time it takes to get my books and get out--is the Mid-Manhattan Library that makes for a really nice change.

And we finished our day off having dinner at the Great Adirondack Brewing Company. Where I got a souvenir glass. Score!

Adirondack Trip Part II

I'd actually gone up Algonquin once before. The first time we--my father, my sister, and me--went backpacking we hiked up around Avalanche Lake to Lake Colden. The next day we went to climb Algonquin from there. I'd sprained my ankle at the beginning of the summer--you'll notice a theme here--and it wasn't particularly bothering me. But then at the very beginning of the hike up Algonquin I jumped down off a rock and re-sprained it. Anyway, long story short, that's a hell of a steep hike--probably the steepest I've ever done--and I don't remember it fondly. We stopped just short of the summit. Few hundred yards probably.

So this time around we were going up the easy way. My father though, planned to do Algonquin, Iroquois, and Wright as he had with my sister several years ago. Which seemed a little ambitious seeing as I did a number on my ankle back in June--told you this was a theme--and it's really not fully recovered yet. So I'm completely out of shape, a bit wobbly, and the slowest hiker around. It's fairly pathetic. In the end, we just did Algonquin and Iroquois.

Anyway, the hike up Algonquin from the side we went up this time is very nice. And the temperature at the beginning of the hike was pleasant--cool but not cold--while the scenery was picturesque.

A not terribly flattering photo of me
but at least I'm small and everything else is lovely.

It wasn't until we got up near the alpine zone that things got really chilly. Other adjectives? Windy. Icy.

The trail just hiked.

And the top? Now that was cold. And pretty slippery.

Snow and ice coating the alpine grass and rocks.

The view of the Adirondacks was probably as nice as I've seen though. The pictures below don't really do it justice, but they'll give you an idea.

Looking toward Lake Placid from Algonquin.

The view of a snowy Marcy (the big tall one blending into the background) and a number of the other High Peaks.

From Algonquin we continued over Boundary to Iroquois. Which I was not even a little bit happy about, since my ankle hurt and we had been told there was more ice and lots of mud on the trek over. But my father wanted to, so across to Iroquois we went. The trail over is not only muddy but narrow, so you're constantly being poked by the spiny alpine pines. Not really worth it to me even if you do get a nice, close-up view of Algonquin.

Looking over Boundary to Algonquin

Lake Colden and the Flowed Lands

To get down, we had to go right back the way we came. The most interesting part of this section of the hike. This side of the mountain was much less snowy and the ice had mostly collected on the boulders and cairns marking the path. The wind had clearly been blowing hard from this direction and it blew the ice into delicate, flower-like clusters.

This picture keeps rotating 90 degrees counter-clockwise for reasons beyond me.

By the time we got back to the peak of Algonquin it was late afternoon.
Because I'm so slow at this hiking thing these days it was dark before we got down and we finished the hike up wearing our nifty little head lamps. When we got back to the campsite we just heated up some soup and had a campfire before going to bed. It was a tiring day but truly enjoyable and it's invigorating to spend time in someplace so different than the city.

My father took the pictures with me in them, of course, and I think also the pictures of Marcy and the alpine grass covered with ice.

Adirondack Trip Part I

So the Adirondacks? Not so warm. I'm just saying.

On Saturday morning I got on the train at Penn Station. I don't do it to often but I love traveling by train seems so much more civilized than other kinds of long distance public transit. They don't search your bags or confiscate your water and nail file. You get to keep your shoes and belt on and don't have to go through metal detectors or step into those weird explosive detection portals that puff air at you. The conductors aren't uncomfortably friendly; they just look at your ticket and answer any questions and leave you the fuck alone. It's such a relief to take a trip and get to retain your dignity at the same time.

I got off in Saratoga where my father picked me up and we had lunch then wandered around a bit and went to the grocery store for hiking food before driving up to the ADK campground to set up camp. As we drove into the High Peaks region I noted that there was snow on the top of the high mountains. My father claimed that it was just rockslides that I was looking at but I think he wasn't looking very closely because it was totally snow.

Here in New York the leaves really aren't changing yet and even up in Saratoga only some of the them had changed, but up in the High Peaks they were actually just past peak. The valleys and lower slopes of the mountains were all red, orange, and gold and the ground was covered with fallen leaves.
The Adirondacks aren't as beautiful as the Catskills come fall because they are only partially covered by deciduous forest so you always have the green of the coniferous forest, but they're still pretty damn lovely.

We didn't have anything particular to do beyond going to EMS to buy insoles for my hiking boots, so we met friends of his for dinner and then played SNATCH for a bit before going to bed. I'm embarrassingly bad at word games. Anything that requires me to rearrange letters gets ugly fast.

Sunday morning we got up, I put on 5 layers of clothing plus winter hat and gloves, and we had oatmeal (plus tea for me) before getting ready for our trek up Algonquin. I'd never hiked at this time of year or in these temperatures so I added a pair of leggings under my hiking pants and put a jacket in my backpack along with all the food.
Notice the stylish gaiters. When it's not actually freezing out--which it wasn't, at least during the day--mud on the Adirondack hiking trails is as certain as death and taxes and hiking with cold, wet, muddy feet sucks, so they were definitely a good thing to have.

Everything together, we headed up the mountain just before 9 in the morning. And I'll write about that later, because it's time for me to go to bed.

Off to the Adirondacks!

I hop on a train to Saratoga first thing tomorrow morning. My father is going to meet me there and we're going to drive up to the high peaks region of the Adirondacks. Apparently it's supposed to be cold and rainy there (with is about par for the course for my hiking trips) but if we get any nice weather at all it should be gorgeous. And I'm going apple picking! Should be a good time.

Maine (Part III)

On our penultimate day in Maine we went back to Camden and ate lunch in their pretty little park overlooking the harbor.

Then we did a short hike (which my ankle survived, fortunately) up to a low peak with a tower on top of it and a nice view of Camden.

We topped off the day by leaving my brother in the hotel and walking out to the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, which we could see from the hotel balcony. From the balcony it didn't seem very far, but up close it looked far more like the mile walk that it is.

The lighthouse itself wasn't particularly interesting (you couldn't go in or anything) but the walk was nice. We did see this large spider on the building.
I tried to get a picture where there was an actual reference for the size but the spider moved and I jumped about three feet so it didn't actually come out.

My dad was on some kind of Robert Redford kick and we'd watched The Sting earlier in the week so after the lighthouse we watched Three Days of the Condor, which I could have lived without seeing.

On Friday we had to leave fairly early and drive back to Portland so I could catch my return flight. We did have time to stop in a town along the way, the name of which I forget, to go on a boat tour for Cody. We saw other lots of other boats, lobster traps and buoys, and islands. So not terribly exciting but quite nice.

Actually, that probably describes the trip as a whole. It was nice to get a break and I had a lot of time to read and relax and while it wasn't a thrill a minute or anything it was lovely nevertheless.

Maine (Part II)

As I write this we're in the midst of one of the hardest sun showers I've ever seen. The rain is torrential, but everything is suffused with a golden light that's reflecting off the car windshields and puddles. Anyway . . .

Partway through our trip to Maine, and with my ankle feeling only bad as opposed to awful and looking lightly bruised as opposed to eggplant-esque, we headed up to Bar Harbor and Acadia. All along the way the highway is dotted with lupines (a very washed out picture below, I know).
They're a flower I don't see that often but do particularly love, because my mother used to read my sister and me Miss Rumphius when we were kids.
As a little girl, Miss Rumphius decides to do two things before she dies: travel the world and live by the sea when she is old. Her grandfather makes her promise to also do something to make the world a more beautiful place. And so in her old age she walks around scattering lupine seeds wherever she goes.

But back to Maine. Bar Harbor is a lot like Camden in that it's pretty and quiet and has cute shops and nice little restaurants. And a harbor. My parents came here on their honeymoon.

I was more excited though, to see Acadia, which, as it turns out, is a very genteel seeming national park. My father sister and I started out by going on a bike ride along one of the carriageways built by the Rockefellers.

Along the route we were able to see a neat bridge and a pretty lake, but nothing particularly earth-shattering.


After our biking and a couple side trips, first to the nature center and then to Bar Harbor to grab dinner stuff, we drove along on a greatest hits of Acadia tour. Our first stop was Thunder Hole, which was just gurgling at the time. Thunder Hole is a little cavern at the end of a small inlet. As the waves come in they force air out of the cavern, making the noise. You can just see the cavern in this terrible picture:

Then, we stopped at a cove where my brother and sister got their feet wet in very cold water.

And finally we drove up the edge of Somes Sound, which doesn't look to terribly interesting but is actually the only fjord on the East Coast--and the only one I've ever seen.

Our final stop of the night was Cadillac Mountain, where we watched the sun set.

And then it was the long, late drive back to Rockland, two-and-a-half hours away.