Adirondacks Day 1 (B) - Weds 6/20/12

Part 2, Lake George

Leo, Dave, Ted, Phil

4:39pm - We left the rest stop south of Albany at 3:35, and arrive at our motel with plenty of daylight left. The motel is... ok... although the room Dave and I share doesn't smell so great. Blasting the air conditioning takes the edge off that however, and the price is right for a simple overnight stay. We have two rooms; one for the early sleepers (Dave and I) and one for the night owls (the other three). One thing we realize upon arrival here is that we didn't pack the car with any forethought to what we would want to get out of the van for this stop. We basically have to disassemble things to get at what we need (and consequently do so again to reload the following morning). If we had been thinking ahead, everyone would have had what they would need in their day packs, and all we would have wanted was one cooler with some liquid refreshment. Live and learn.

5:45pm - Having gotten what we need into our rooms, we hop back in the van for the short drive into town. The others have been here before, and they warn me that it is touristy and full of shops selling all sorts of junk, but that the lake is pretty and there are places right on the water where we can get something to eat. The consensus is that we are looking for wings and beer. That shouldn't be too hard to find.

Right around the corner from the motel, we stop and find a geocache, the first of three we will find in the town (and the first of eight overall for the trip).

Tourist steamboat from dinner deck

We park on the southwest side of the lake, right in the midst of everything, and quickly find a waterside bar and restaurant with a deck overlooking the lake. We settle in a order some drinks and an assortment of appetizers, including wings and steamers, as dinner. The wings are just the way they should be: crispy and lip-buzzing hot. It's a nice way to end a day, and we quickly settle into the familiar conversations and jokes. We have all known each other for a very long time, and everything is comfortable. We all have our quirks, but they are very well known and expected quirks. I have known Phil for about 30 years (maybe 31-32), Ted about 34, and Dave and Leo forever.

After finishing dinner, we make a second unsuccessful attempt to find an easy cache right outside the bar. When logging caches at home after the trip, I would see that the cache had gone missing and been disabled between the time I loaded my GPS and when we got there. If I had used my phone app, we would have known this, but I didn't think to do that.

Fort William Henry

Due to leap year, I think I saw somewhere that the summer solstice was at 7:09pm tonight, so it is the longest day of the year (not the 21st as usual). We have plenty of light left to take a leisurely stroll around the south shore of the lake, passing by the exterior of Fort William Henry. This area was extremely important in colonial and Revolutionary times, and seeing this old stockade fort was a nice bonus. There wasn't time to go in, even if it was still open at that time of the evening. The views birth up the lake were gorgeous as the sun faded.

Sunset over Lake George

9:00pm - Back in the night owls' room for a couple beers and some TV. Dave and I didn't last long and headed back to our room to write a little, read a bit, and then sleep.

Dusk with steamboat

Next... To Heart Lake