Fun Weekend #218

Ben had no school on Friday, so I took a personal day and we made a long weekend...it's been great so far...


Friday morning at about 9am, I picked up Ben's friend Brennan and we headed north to Plattsburgh...the boys played with toys and listened to Brennan's MP3 player in the back...


We played in the McDonald's Playplace for almost 2 hours, and the boys took a quick break for some lunch before heading over to the movie theater...

We went to see, "Race to Witch Mountain", which was a blast!



After the movie we did a quick shop at Petsmart, got some treats for the dogs (even Brennan's), and then headed home...

This morning, Ben and I headed over to Paula's Airport Cafe, at the nearby Lake Clear Airport, to meet our friend George for breakfast...we had a nice time and George handed off an Apple Ipod Touch, one of about 15 which Apple are letting some teachers in my district (myself included) play with for a while...I suspect their trying to get me hooked, but in the meantime, it's fun...

Ben and I spent much of the day geocaching, which was nice given the perfect Adirondack weather...about 10 degrees when we got up this morning, and about 50 by this afternoon...blue skies in all directions and lots of sun...


Ben gave me this cagey look when he had spotted our first geocache of the day, and was certain that I had not...


Our second cache of the day was next to Lower Saranac Lake, and the whole time that we were hunting for the hidden container, the lake was groaning and cracking and shifting, so Ben asked if it was safe to walk out on...I've seen trucks parked on the lakes by their owners' fishing shacks, so I felt confident that Ben and I would be safe...


He was, as always, a big help while looking for the geocaches as well as while homing in on them while using the GPS receiver...


By our fourth geocache of the day, we were in the groove, getting used to the outdoors, and starting to get hungry...


So we stopped in at Ben's favorite McDonald's, in Lake Placid...his spot, and he's always annoyed if someone else is in it, is a benchseat in front of a fireplace...we got lucky today, and we shared a lunch of chicken nuggets and fish sandwiches...food of the geocaching gods!


Our final geocache of the day was all the way down in Wilmington, past Whiteface, along the West Branch of the Ausable River...it was gorgeous, with huge chunks of ice both floating and stranded...we walked about a mile in the woods, with the sound of the river never leaving us...we saw lots of great prints in the snow, crossed semi-treacherous ice-fields, forded frozen streams, and found the treasure in the end...


It was hidden up and away from the river by a few hundred yards, in a pretty hollow filled with big trees and glacial erratics, and piles of deer poop every few feet...


On the way back, we had to cross a frozen over stream at a wide and rushing and scary point...ok, we didn't have to cross there, but we wanted to...it was a challenge, and one which we were equal to...


This is the victory picture...you can still see the residual traces of fear and/or stress in both of our faces...we had crossed the fearsome stream and stayed dry...nature, see our opposable thumbs and tremble!!!


This is the "bridge" that we used to cross the stream...it may not look too daunting from the safety of your living room, but in 30 degree weather, with a half-mile or so back to the car, you don't want to get soaked...we sang songs after the crossing...songs of brave men and insufficient obstacles...

When we were most of the way back to the car, we paused to rest a minute while Ben check out stuff in this brook sharing our path...the grass up to his left is an overgrown beaver dam that runs for about 200 yards, you can see an old lodge in the background, and Whiteface in the distance...

It was a great day of caching, and then we got home, took it easy, and played with the Ipod Touch for awhile after dinner...no plans yet for tomorrow...

J

Down South Sunday

Ben and I headed down South today, to Long Lake and Newcomb and eventually even as far as the ghost town of Tahawus...


We stopped off in Long Lake to do some geocaching, and grab some lunch at the Long Lake Diner (also known as "woods")...


After lunch we drove to, and through, Newcomb, on our way to Tahawus, an old mining town that closed up decades ago...lots of the buildings are still standing today...it was a beautiful day for a drive through this remote part of the Adirondacks, and up into this amazing setting...with tall mountains and intact empty houses standing in the quiet forests...


Ben has been helping me make a movie for a couple of months...mostly sound effects and stuff, but today he told me that he was ready to enter the arena as an actor...so today, he became Timmy the zombie...he was awesome!!!


I'll be coming back down to Tahawus with some friends in April to do some camping and exploring...the state recently bought about 10,000 acres, and Tahawus and beautiful Lake Henderson are right in the heart of it...exploring the woods and waters of the area, especially some of the intact houses up in the woods (which have grown up around the town since it was abandoned) is going to be lots of fun...


We'll be watching scary movies in, or against the wall of, one of the houses...it should be cool...


There is a gorgeous and huge old mansion across the Hudson (which is only yards across at this point in its journey to the ocean), which looks to be in perfect shape, and should be pretty once we get a closer look...



Making movies and exploring ghost towns is hard work, so Ben and Penny took it easy on the drive home...I cranked back both of their seats in the Element, and it made a perfect full-length snuggling bench...


At one point Penny decided to come up and visit me, which required that she crawl across and over Ben...this pleased everyone involved...


We stopped off in Long Lake for a short play and pee time (Ben played and Penny pee'd) at one of the best tiny playgrounds in the known universe...


On the way home, between Long Lake and Tupper Lake, Penny went to sleep on her piece of the bench, and Ben looked at the cool geocaching cards that we got from our friends Shane and Doree in Long Lake...the guy behind us blew by us about 10 seconds after this picture was taken, and was pulled over a minute after that...HA!

It was a great Sunday!

Cornwall Weekend

We headed down to Connecticut to visit with my parents and sister last weekend...we brought down Penny and Cedar, and my parents' dog Maggie was there, so it was a dog-tastic weekend...


Ben loved showing D, and others, how to watch movies on Netflix using his computer...


He made a cool spy gadget with Anti-Sarah...


The dogs would play hard and then nap like crazy, sometimes filling whatever room they ran out of gas in with canine wreckage...


Ben and Muz made cookies for the dogs, Muz made all sorts of cookie shapes, Ben preferred to stick to bones, because...they're for dogs...


Saturday night Anti-Sarah and Gail and I stayed home to put flame to some steaks and made some Cornwall-politans and watched a crappy movie after Ben came home and went to bed...


Sarah had fun playing with (and being assaulted with kisses) by Penny and Cedar...

It was a fun weekend, and nice to see everyone...

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!