Skiing at Pisgah with Ben

Ben and I went to Mount Pisgah this afternoon...it was a beautiful day...sunny and high 20s...


He was a little nervous after so long a time since our last skiing afternoon, but he got back into the swing of things pretty quickly...


There were very few people on the mountain, which suited us just fine...short lines at the T-bar, and no zoomers coming down the mountain


He fell a bunch of times, but was a good sport about it...


It was a beautiful afternoon, the light on the mountains and the setting sun blew us away, and we kept taking runs until we were both a bit tired, and fell once too many times...that's ok, we'll live to ski another day...


On the way home we stopped in to pick up some subs at Jreck Subs, a tradition that we started last year, and still enjoy...

Presidents Day Weekend!

I went winter camping this past weekend with some friends along nearby Polliwog Pond...it was a beautiful weekend, with nearly perfect weather...days in the 20s and nights around 0...10 people came in all, 7 men and 3 women, most from New York, but one from Toronto and another from Pennsylvania...


Everyone showed up early Friday afternoon, and we broke camp on Sunday around noon...


We had lots of different experience levels and lots of different gear to compare and discuss while enjoying the beauty and the cold and each others company...


One camper even spent the weekend living under a tarp, instead of a tent as the rest of us did...he had the necessary gear and clothing to make it work, and enjoys going lightweight...


A couple of minutes before sunrise on Saturday morning was spectacular, I went for a walk out on the pond...I could hear/feel the ice shifting under my feet, and watch my stove to see when my water got to a boil for my breakfast of oatmeal and cocoa...


I had chopped a hole in the pond for our water (much easier than melting snow), and Friday night we all took a late night hike out onto the pond to look at the stars, away from the light of our campfire and headlamps...it was gorgeous!


Our tent-city (8 shelters including the tarp-shelter) was quiet while I made and ate my breakfast...I have grown comfortable with the fact that I get up earlier than those I go camping with...


Another camper enjoying the early-morning quiet out on the pond...


The Sun finally peeks over the trees, and makes everything sparkly...


Some campers got up and enjoyed their breakfast at the pond's edge...


I went to check on Bryce to make sure that he hadn't frozen to death during the night, but he was so warm and comfy that he didn't want to get up yet...


Kevin made Mercedes scrambled eggs for Valentine's day...how sweet!


We went out on one of the local roads later, on a trip to the rifle range, and it was just a beautiful drive...


When we returned to camp, people took the opportunity to enjoy the sun and the pond, Bryce even took a nap out on the pond, while facing the Sun...


The sun fell early and quickly, and the cold came back, but we were ready, with a large supply of wood for the fire, and a communal supper which everyone helped with...


Later on that night, we all piled into the big tent and used a little (and largely ineffectual) propane heater and a power inverter running from my Honda Element (via a long extension cord) to make our campsite into a movie theater...we watched "28 Days Later" while the pond ice shifted noisily outside the tent, and the night got colder and colder...it's sort of fun to geek out and do the movie0watching thing when camping...


The next morning, after a communal breakfast and some time around the campfire, we all pitched in to break camp...some of the tent stakes had frozen into the ground, and needed an ax or shovel to be freed...


We posed for a group shot before heading our separate ways, having already made plans to continue the winter camping tradition (this was the second time that we had done it), and excited about other future camping trips...


While I was off in the woods, Gail and Ben were participating in the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Parade...the theme this year was "Pirates of the Adirondacks!", and Ben's school, which is closing at the end of this year, put together (with lots of help from Gail and our friend Rebecca) a cadre of 1st and 2nd grade pirates to march in the parade and represent Lake Clear Elementary School...


They had a great time, although by the end of the parade, everyone was cold and tired...


Ben likes being a pirate...


He had a great time with his friends in the parade...

All in all, a great weekend for everyone!

Winter Carnival and long winter weekend

Yesterday was the Winter Carnival for Ben and the other kids at the Lake Clear School...Ben wasn't feeling well, but he wanted to participate...I was luckily able to go over and watch/help...


He had a great time playing with his friends in the snow...


It started raining most of the way through the festivities, but they kept playing and having fun...


This morning, neither Ben nor I have school, so we're enjoying a mellow day together while it drizzles and melts outside...Ben asked for a funky breakfast, stuff that he has never had before...I made pancakes with various add-ins (clockwise from the top):

• ginger
• mandarin orange
• marshmallows
• hot dogs
• popcorn
  

He ate in his Darth Sidious costume because that's how we roll on our days off...we're now watching "Hancock", which is a great story, although a little rich in rough language...

Winter Carnival Fireworks!

Yesterday afternoon, we got a call from George Bailey, a teacher that I work with over in LP...he wanted to go and clean off his plane, which lives at the Lake Clear Airport, and offered us a ride in exchange for some company and help...we met him over at the airport and headed over to his plane...the weather didn't work out for a flight, but it's always cool to see George and to explore the inside of the wire at the airport...


Ben in his plane-cleaning outfit was ready to go to work...looking pretty serious about his job of light-aircraft squeegee-er...


Gail in the Element with a spiffy beret and a Winter Carnival button...

After dark, we headed over to Saranac Lake to see the opening ceremonies of the Winter Carnival...the lighting of the pirate ship and the ice castle, and the fireworks, which are always fun...even in a freezing drizzle like we had last night...

My little camera is simple and tough, but it does not do very well in dark conditions with occasional flashes...it's just not that smart...Gail did a great job of taking pictures, while Ben rode on my shoulders to get a view from over the crowd...


The fireworks started off when the pirate ship launched some fireworks at the ice castle...a clever little gambit that unfortunately resulted in the furled sails of the pirate ship catching on fire (more on that later in the blog)...the ice castle responded in kind, and the fireworks display was off and running...


Maybe because of the mist and hanging in the air, the light from the fireworks reflected all over the area where we were standing in a really impressive way, and the booms/whistles/screams/pops from the various kinds of explosions were amazing...


The organizers (choreographers?) of the fireworks did a great job of mixing high altitude explosions with low-level light shows just above the turrets of the castle...


Ben was captivated the entire time, giving a blow by blow description of the size and color and sounds and closeness of the explosions...at one point a shift in the wind brought some of the rocket material down all around us (with some pieces landing on the sleeves of my coat, and a still flaming fragment touching down on some nearby fireworks-watchers, luckily out-of-towners)...Ben thought the whole thing, including the near-incineration of our short-term neighbors, was AWESOME!!!



It was at this point in the celebration that people began to notice the smoldering and smoking sails on the pirate ship, and a minute later, the arrival of a couple of fire engines...Ben, and all of the children around us, thought that this was a highlight of the fireworks display...while the firemen unloaded their hoses and got ready to assault the conflagration on the pirate ship...


As a particularly huge series of booms and technicolor explosions, both high and low, went off above the castle, the SLVFD ran a hose into the pirate ship and ran around the side, entering where Ben had played only hours earlier, and hosed down the sails and mast and flag while everyone cheered...some for the firemen, some for the fireworks, some for both...


The ending of the fireworks display was a pleasant assault on our eyes and ears and noses (yummy sulfur smell!) that went on for minutes before leaving all of us in a thunderous silence, which the gathered crowd swiftly filled with applause and cheers before wandering back to our cars...all of us remarking that this may have been the best Winter Carnival Fireworks display ever!

Thanks Saranac Lake for a fun time with the Winter Carnival so far!

Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, part 1

Ben and I visited the ice castle in Saranac Lake today...this year's version is awesome!!!


There was a neat sign with some history of the village and the Winter Carnival and the ice castle...we've had a good year for building an ice castles...lots of cold weather and not too much insulating snow on top of the frozen lake from which they carve the blocks of ice...this combination allowed the makers of the ice castle to cut really big blocks of ice to aid in their construction efforts this year...



This year's theme is "Pirate's of the Adirondacks", and in the picture above, Ben was helpfully pointing out one of the cannons carved out of ice in front of the main gate leading into the ice castle...


That's Ben seated on one of the thrones inside the main chamber of the ice castle...yup, it's really tall...


This little outbuilding overlooks the boat launch, and itself is made from a couple of hundred of the huge blocks of ice, and has a functional wooden door built into the wall...


Out on the front porch of the outbuilding, there are a couple of Adirondack chairs made of...wait for it...ice...


Around the back of the ice castle is a maze made of ice walls about 8 feet high...in some places you can see aquatic plants frozen into the ice, and while walking through the maze, Ben and I could see people through the blocks of ice...


In one part of the maze, there was a tunnel that Ben crawled through to get back to the main chamber of the ice castle...the tunnel was 20-30 feet long...


While we were checking out the ice castle, Ben and I heard some bagpipe music, and turned around to see the Winter Carnival King at the head of a procession...


A procession of people heading over to a cleared area on the lake, where the local curling club was getting ready to have a demonstration and tournament...


Ben and I hung out for a while watching the players hurl and sweep in this classically Scottish pastime...Ben has Scottish blood running through his veins, and thusly appreciates both sports and forms of combat that involve throwing heavy rocks...


After watching the curling for a bit, we wandered over to the prize of this year's ice collection...the ginormous pirate ship...


Not only was it cool to look at from the outside, but it was beautifully built, and had an open deign that allowed people to get inside and explore it...


This picture is of Ben inside the ship, up on the upper deck behind the steering wheel...

The great ice and superb planners have really outdone themselves this year...we'll be back tonight for the fireworks, and we can't wait...