The Obies: The park, vacation and dunking.

So we recently took a trip to the local park with the entire family! No small undertaking now to get everyone together, and we had a great time. Jackson even got to play with Speedy part of the day, and Speedy was in tortoise heaven eating all the grass he could.

And this past few days Laura and I took our first extended trip without Jackson(thanks again Gran and Granddad Julian). We went North to Lake Placid and Lake George, New York. The reason for this area was to hike the highest point in NY which is Mount Marcy.
We have decided that Lake George is a much nicer lake than Lake Placid, but of course Lake Placid has more of the name because of the Olympics. It is really beyond both of us as to how a village of 2000-3000 people held the Olympics not once but twice, but it was a nice little village.

We had talked about taking a ride on the bobsled(they actually offer this at quite a steep price), but this was the closest we came to bobsleeding.

We went to breakfast at the Sagamore which is a beautiful Inn on Lake George. The price to stay there was exorbitant, but the breakfast buffet was okay and then we went and hung out on the grounds and read the newspaper and watched the parasailers. I would recommend this method of seeing the Sagamore to anyone with a thrifty mindset.

Then we hiked Mt. Marcy which is 14+ miles of hiking. We made it in just under 7 hours. Unfortunately the weather at the top was rough with very high winds and no visibility, but luckily we had a few fleeting views on the way up. There was a fine mist and overcast skies through much of our climb. We started at 59 degrees and climbed into the mid 60s by the end of the hike. It was clearly not in the mid sixties on top of this mountain. At least we have another State Highpoint off our list.

We then returned to Lake George and stayed at a fabulous bed and breakfast called the Cornerstone Victorian. Super nice owners and pretty grounds and room, but the main attraction here was the 5 course candlelit breakfast. The first course was pineapple and watermelon, second fresh blueberry coffee cake, third a zucchini and goat cheese tart, fourth a granola parfait, and fifth was either a phenomenal waffle with caramel or a great egg, cheese and ham strada. My mouth is watering just writing about it all.

We also took a cruise on Lake George and saw a lot of nice camps/homes. We were amused at how eager everyone was to come running from their homes to wave to all of us on the ship. Never seen anything like it. The participation rate was very unusually high.

We had an extra day but decided to head back homeward bound a little early. We stopped by my alma mater on the way. It was strange how much it had changed and stayed the same at the same time. A few new buildings, but the students looked the same and the same fraternity houses were playing the same absurdly loud music constantly. Interesting to see, but I don't need to go back again.

This waterfall is near RPI and was a common haunt for a few of our classmates. We used to swim and cliff jump here. We also saw a few people jumping while we visited this time. I can't believe we used to do this.