Lake Clear Fun

We went on a walk this afternoon through the woods and over to Lake Clear...after enjoying the beach for awhile, we went wading and enjoyed the afternoon with wet/cold legs...


Ben loved exploring the water for snails and mussels...


We also had a great time investigating and learning about and playing with "Lake Farts", a cool phenomenon resulting from a layer of decomposers under the sand eating dead plant and animal matter, and then excreting a fun combination of methane and carbon dioxide...when you walk on the sand on top of the wee-beastie colonies, you release the gas either in streams or big bubbles of stinky "Lake Farts"...

You can see Ben jumping to release the good stuff and giggling...


Gail loved it too...here she is pointing out a particularly nice one...some of them were big enough to make you think a fish had jumped...


Gail took this picture of some "Lake Farts" yearning to break free of their sandy shackles...


Here is Ben walking through the water, with St. Regis Mountain in the background...


Gail and Ben had fun catching and comparing snails...no...we're having chicken for supper...


It was a gorgeous day out on (in) the water...


In the picture above, you can see the track of a confused freshwater mussel meandering around the floor of Lake Clear...you can see the mussel itself in the lower left-hand corner of the picture...


We explored along the shore into the weeds and reed a bit, but the lake-bottom got a bit nasty over there, so we cut back to the nicer, beach-y sand in the land of the "Lake Farts"...


The walk back was nice, although we could already feel the day cooling off as we cruised through the woods, crunching over the leaves and smelling the sweet rot of autumn...

First Weekend of Autumn

Ben and I headed out for an overnight camping trip Saturday morning...we were torn between Polliwog Pond and Hoel Pond as our spot, so we did a drive-by on both, and decided on Hoel Pond...there wasn't anyone else around at Hoel Pond, while we would have had neighbors all around us at Polliwog...


We got the pick of the litter at Hoel Pond, a super site that could have happily hosted 5-7 tents, but had a perfect spot for ours down by the water, and our own private beach!


After setting up camp and having lunch, Ben and I took a hike along the shore of Hoel Pond down to another beach that some may recognize from a blog from long ago...it was chilly, this late in September in the Adirondacks we often have already had snow, but we went in swimming and then walked back to our campsite in the water...



Here's a view of our campsite from the water...



Ben was a little chilly by the time we got back, so he warmed up by changing out of the wet stuff and then playing in the tent for a bit, reaching out for his shoes when he was ready to get them back on and help me gather firewood...


Later in the afternoon, the wind started to pick up and the sky to cloud over...it looked like rain, but it never did...Ben enjoyed a snack down by the pond while watching the whitecaps cruise by...


We cooked dinner over a campfire, using a mess-kit that Ben got for his birthday...


Ben's spork was the big hit of the evening...although the beer-cap-studded "table" was a close second...


Ben loved "pot-walloping" the dishes after dinner...pot-walloping is old-school, dirty dishes are pre-scraped into the fire (food and other stuff burns before the evening is over), the dishes are filled with water and sand, which is swished/massaged/rinsed around until clean...


He loved it so much that he insisted on doing all of the dishes and flatware...it might not be politically/environmentally correct, but I'm a big fan for single overnight trips, the dishes get clean, and less soap (try none!) gets into the environment...


Ben was very excited for cutting sticks and roasting marhmallows, except, as it turns out, for the roasting marshmallows part...he likes putting them onto the stick, and then eating them raw before anyone gets a chance to burn them...


We got dressed for bed, and into the tent by 7:15 for reading and ghost-stories...I had to stop reading at one point to put a bit more water on the fire (to make certain it was out) and had to take a picture of the sky over the water...beautiful...

Geek Moment Alert - skip down 2 clicks to avoid gushing about my Ipod

My Ipod Shuffle is the size of a book of matches, holds 1 gigabyte of music and books on tape, plays for 12 hours on a charge, and in its Nalgene container can survive more abuse than any piece of electronics should have to face...

After reading a Scooby-Doo story and sharing SPOOKY ghost stories, Ben went to sleep, but as it was only 7:45, I did not...I listened to a mellow mix of Mozart, Bob Marley, Patsy Cline, Eric Clapton, Marc Cohn, and Sarah McLachlan for a while...listening to the wind and waves and Ben's breathing and feeling the night-air cool down bit by bit...after an hour or so, I flipped through the selections until I found my audiobook version of "A Sand County Almanac", by Aldo Leopold...it was simply perfect...the night moved ahead, the segments of the story unfolded, and Ben reached over to hold my arm in his sleep...


My Shuffle, when wrapped up with its ear buds, fits perfectly into a 2-ounce nalgene jar that will likely survive the end of days, and provide hours of enjoyment to the roaches that still live on Earth...

We now return you to the Blog...

Ben woke up at about 4:30, and came over to snuggle...we got up as soon as it was possible to see and put some water on my ancient "any-fuel" stove for tea/hot-cider/and oatmeal...


The spork made another appearance, as did the NFA's flag, and after the sun snuck up over the first tree around Hoel Pond, we went for a canoe trip...


It was a beautiful morning on the pond, although it was still pretty cold...Ben wrapped himself in a fleece blanket and talked the whole time about the fog on the water, the hawk we saw fishing, the drips from my paddle freezing his neck, and the warmth of the bottle of hot cider in his hands...

After the paddle, we packed up our camp and headed over to meet Mommy at Paula's Airport Cafe, and on the way over we saw a huge group of turkeys getting their breakfast along the side of the road...


We had a great 2nd breakfast, and filled Mommy in on the fun that we had while camping...

After unpacking my Element, I headed up to Plattsburgh to get my car serviced and to catch "Resident Evil: Extinction"...a movie with zombies, Las Vegas and Milla Jovovich...a trifecta in Jamie-world...





After the movie, I drove home through a gorgeous afternoon in the best place in the world before getting back home...I stopped in at the Harrietstown Town Cemetery to admire the view...



My current plan is to live forever, and it's working perfectly so far, but if I have to die, I'd like to either be buried in this place or have my ashes spread in one of the other great spots in this super spot where we live...

Sunday Geocaching Outing

After early-morning (too early the first time around) birthday wishes for La-La (Happy Birthday La-La!!!), We loaded 2 geocaches into my GPSr and headed out this morning for some geocaching down past Tupper Lake...one was an easy one, good for warming us up (both literally and figuratively...it was 28 degrees in Lake Clear this morning and it's also been a while since we went geocaching)...

The second geocache was at the summit of Coney Mountain, a challenge along the lines of Panther, but new to all of us!


There were lots of great trees, living and dead, along the way, and Ben loved all of them...he was amazed at how bugs and time make hard wood so punky and easy to break apart...


There were a bunch of great erratics with trees growing over them, and Ben picked this one to take a rest/snack-break on...


This tree must have fallen over a couple of times in its youth, and grown bent for awhile before falling again...the result is that it has grown with this huge "N" curve in its trunk...


Another rest break further up the mountain saw Ben and Gail enjoying some snacks while the chilly sun fell through the maple leaves onto their faces...



We got up to the top shortly thereafter, and were amazed at the incredible view...this mountain has an incredible payoff, in terms of scenic value to energy expended...


Ben had a great time running around and playing on the top of the mountain, and eating raisins...


I had to do a runaround picture of us, with the High Peaks in the background...


Ben and Gail chilled out on the summit while I went down an alternate trail a bit to find the geocache...it was disappointingly empty (a situation that I remedied)...


He played with the awesome Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (TMNT) that we had traded for in the first cache of the day while enjoying the view and sunlight and occasional scent of pleasantly rotting leaves from the woods below us...

A TMNT says "YARGHHH" like this...

Gail and Ben took a hug-break before heading down...we were very glad that Mommy could join us on this outing...she's between classes in her doctoral program, and the house is sparkling clean (Thanks Honey!)...


We started back down after hanging out on the top of Coney Mt. for a while, and had a fun time negotiating the slippery leaves and rocks and roots on the way back down...


On the way back home, we passed a couple of deer feasting on the side of the road near the Wawbeek...

A pile of PB&Js later, we trundled downstairs for a little Jimmy Neutron therapy in the horizontal position...we might have to light a fire in a bit, it's cold down here...

A Muz and D Weekend!

Muz and D came up this weekend to see Ben after his big week...they got here Friday night, and stayed at the Best Western in Saranac Lake...


We went over early Saturday morning to meet them for breakfast and to bring stuff over for Ben to have a sleepover...


We opened up a couple more presents and played with Maggie in the hotel room for a while...


Then we all went out for a walk out to Follensby Clear Pond...


Ben and D threw a ball that Maggie found by the Colgate tennis courts for a while once we reached our favorite spot...


Maggie likes tennis balls...


After the walk, we all went to the Wild Center in Tupper Lake...a great natural history museum that is always a super time...


On the way over we had passed a mother deer and 2 fawns eating by the side of the road, so Ben was excited to watch an instructional piece on deer...


Gail and Ben played with a wind and sand erosion simulator that helps people understand the way that these forces of nature affect the Adirondack High Peaks...


We were extra lucky in that there was a great presentation on birds of prey...you can see the huge eagle owl that was the star of the show, and in the background, a hawk that played a supporting role...


The owl, Marley, watched us all, moving and twisting his head to track us the whole time his handler was talking...


His claws were truly impressive, apparently he is capable of hunting prey as big as opossums and raccoons ...

After the Wild Center, we went for lunch at Mountain Mist, a great ice-cream place and eatery by the water of Lake Flower...


Maggie likes ice cream...yes, that is a drip on her nose...but she still manages to concentrate on the job at hand...


Ben wasn't too interested in his ice cream cone, but he was excited to give the cone to the ducks which frequent the lake near the picnic area...


After lunch we went on a walk along the Bloomingdale Bog trail...Ben was a little tired, and had a birthday to go to afterwards, so he took it a little easy...


Maggie likes mud...she went swimming about 20 times during our hour-long walk, including one time when she leapt into some serious mud, and even plunged her nose into it...D had to walk into the water when we found a less muddy spot and splash her off to get her clean...


After the birthday party (which was great...Happy Birthday Ayla!), Muz and D and Ben went in one direction (for pizza and a sleepover at the Best Western) while Gail and I went over to Lake Placid for an anniversary dinner (our 10th was on the 6th) at Desperados, a super Mexican restaurant...after supper we stopped off at Price Chopper for some margarita fixin's for our evening...on the way out, we saw this view of a cloud getting caught on the pointy end of Whiteface Mountain...


The next morning, not too early, I met Muz and D and Ben over at the Paul Smiths VIC, for a walk...the trail we took goes along the marshy water, and out over it at intervals on boardwalks that allow great views of the surrounding area...


Muz and Ben found a cool frog sunning himself right by the boardwalk while D and Maggie moved out in search of more great smells...


After Muz and D left, to go back down to NYC, we went home in the just-started rain to play with a birthday present from Anti-Sarah...a block of "rock" with all sorts of Egyptian treasure encapsulated inside of it, that we got to take apart like archaeologists (the goggles are mine...yes, I'm that nerdy)...


Once we had all of the pieces out of the block, we polished them up a bit using an old toothbrush...{Ben could totally be an ad for this thing!!!}...


As a bonus, there's a cool game included in the box that we played a bunch of times after we found all of the pieces...we each won a game apiece...

Since that time, we've been taking it easy, getting ready for another big week of Kindergarten through some Scooby-Doo therapy...(Old-Man Smithers would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for those meddling kids, and their pesky mutt too)...

A fun and busy weekend for the newly 5 year-old and his parents and grandparents...