We made Hunter the lookout because A: He's got the best hearing this side of Planet Earth, and B: we wanted to try to steal as much Mother Nature as we could fit in our fanny packs.
Mmmm, yummy lake water. He was actually seizing with absolute ecstasy over how much time he got to spend hiking, swimming, sprinting, and chasing tennis balls. I felt like Santa on Christmas morning. Look! Water! And Land! And Exercise! I'm the best Santa ever.
I have to give this tree street cred (I am from Brooklyn after all) for persistence. I may have thought when presented with this giant immovable, solid blob of stone that perhaps I would choose to grow in the other direction, say where there was only soft mulch in my path. But no, not this guy, he said fuck you to this rock and I salute him for it. You go tree, it's your birthday. 
I'm sorry, how can you NOT want to eat him? I think we successfully ran the living daylights out of Sir Valiant Hunter the Obstinate on our trip North. After an entire day of running and running and running, Forrest Gump style, we'd come back to our room and set up obstacle courses with the hotel room furniture for him to run through and over and under. I'm an idiot for not taking video of him doing this because we laughed until we peed and kept laughing until the guests down below us called to complain about their ceiling leaking yellow fluid. 
We took a 13 mile canoe trip down the Saranac River with no guide or other people anywhere in sight. It was glorious. For about a quarter mile we watched a bald eagle follow our winding path down the mountain on the river. I think he might have been sizing Hunter up for lunch, but don't tell him that, he was all man out there on the water that day. It was actually the first time he actually went swimming. We stopped to take a break on a little shore, and truth be told to exercise our right to pee in nature, and as we returned to the canoe and pushed off, he decided he wasn't ready to go back in the boat and leaped over the edge into about 2 feet of water. Only he didn't realize the length of his legs was not greater than the distance between the surface of the water and the bottom of the river. He quickly surmised this was very interesting indeed and with the grace of a drowning cat, floundered his way back to shore. The rest of the trip was spent desperately trying to keep him in the canoe.
My shot as Pocahontas.
We signed up for a 3 hour horse back riding trail ride but when we got to the stables there was no one in sight. After waiting and then searching for about a half hour I finally found someone who told me to go find someone else to take us. I found the other person and she had no idea we were there for a trail ride and she had other stuff to do. However, these girls underestimate my pig-headedness and I have always been obsessed with horses, the Saddle Club Series, and anything equine, so I told her we would wait. About this time in the adventure is when G decides he doesn't want to go anymore and that we should leave. But he too underestimates my stubbornility (yes I frequently exercise my right to combine and make new words that describe my meaning) and so I tell him to shut it, we're waiting. I am so glad we did, the trails were breathtaking and the leaves had just started to turn into their fall colors. I took lots of pics out there. Here is us at a peak. The orchestry of this one picture took at least 20 minutes of horse maneuvering.
The last leg of our trip took us to the Olympic Bobsled Tracks which were surprisingly enrapturing. The minute we got near the track I began to feel this deep respect for the athletes that train their entire lives for a few days of competition among the most elite people in their field. As we toured up the mountainside and the guide gave us back history I blocked him out imagining the hours of training, the huge amounts of money spent, the sacrifices to family and friends that these Olympians had made. From the top of the track you can see the entire Bobsled and Luge Courses, the Olympic Ski Jumps off to your right, and Whiteface Mountain, site of the downhill skiing events in the far distance. It's unreal.
I truly loved every minute of this trip and left sleepy little Mirror Lake feeling somewhat sad to be breaking up with it so soon. My affair with the Adirondacks over morning coffee had only just begun and already it was over. Infatuation is sometimes so fleeting, and that is the thrill of it. We left before I could get annoyed at Adirondack for leaving his wet towel hanging on the bedpost. Oh the perfection.
No comments:
Post a Comment