For Memorial Day weekend, I went with my family up to the Adirondacks on Friday, and I came back on Monday. It is about a four-hour drive to get there. We stayed in a house on top of a rocky hill, or as I prefer to call it, a mini mountain, right outside of the bustling city of Keene, and a twenty-minute drive away from downtown lake placid. The house was interestingly designed, a creation from the 1930s, it had six bedrooms, one of which was tucked away in the top corner of the house, and you had to walk through the attic to get to it. There were also mini sets of stairs everywhere. If you wanted to go from the couch in the living room to the kitchen, you had to go up four stairs, which brought you to the dining area (right behind the couch), and then you had to go up four more stairs to get to the kitchen. Or to go to the bathroom from the living room, you had to go down the hall with the bedrooms, and there were two different sets of three stairs, and to go into the bedrooms, there was a small set of stairs. Whoever made the house really liked stairs, or it was built on the side of an uneven mountain, and it was the best way to even everything out, we may never know.
The house was not really off the grid, it had Wi-Fi and cellphone service, but it was up in the mountains and a little solitary, so that is basically the modern equivalent of being off the grid, and if you went either direction, phone service became fleeting quickly. The house only had one tv in it as well, and it did not even have basic cable, it just had a Roku, that did not have anything installed on it making it useless, but the only thing that needed to be watched were the Eastern Conference finals games, which we streamed onto the iPad, so basically no tv or movies this weekend. It was honestly very refreshing. Typically on the weekends, I start off by going to the movies immediately after work on Friday, then I go home and make dinner, and watch another movie. After I run Saturday, while I stretch and do all that good stuff, and I watch a movie at the same time, and so forth. So it was nice to not be inundated with all the content. Although it does still bother me a little that I have not seen the new Top Gun yet, and that the new season of Stranger Things came out, and I have not seen any of it.
In the mornings, I would go for a run, and then when I got back everyone else would be out sitting in the Adirondack chairs having their coffee and breakfast, so I would shower and join them in the relaxation. There is something so peaceful being able to look out on a mountain vista, while inhaling the clean mountain air, and the only sound being the chirping of birds and chipmunks, and slight undertone of car noise from the highway below. At night the silence was deafening. In the bedroom, there was nothing to be heard. It was almost unsettling how quiet it was. It also got pitch black. In my apartment, there is a streetlight across the street from my bedroom, and even with my slanted blinds closed, my room stays pretty visible at night, but here when the lights were out, it was black out. I slept with the curtains open, which was a nice change, there was no man-made light flooding in through them, and then natural light came rushing in in the morning. The best way to be woken up.
After relaxing out in the cool morning air, we would pack our stuff up and go out for the day, the first day we went to Hurricane Mountain. A hike that we did over the course of four hours. It was 6.4 miles roundtrip. At the top of the mountain, it was bald, and it had a fire tower perched peacefully at the top, except as you climb the fire tower, you learn why it is called Hurricane Mountain. At the top of the mountain it was a little windy, but not too bad, but as you climb the fire tower, it was like each step you went up, it added another MPH of wind, until you were at the top, and it felt like the wind was strong enough to not only blow you off the top, but also hard enough to blow the whole fire tower off the mountain. It was a beautiful panoramic view, and well worth the work to get up to it, and it is hard to beat having lunch at the summit of a mountain. I had missed climbing mountains, it seems like in Syracuse there are waterfalls and gorges close by, which are nice, but there is something that makes you feel more accomplished when climbing a mountain.
The next day, we went to White Face, the fifth highest peak in the set. Due to mountain soreness and time constraints, we opted to drive to the top, and hike the small way up to the summit from the castle. The hike although brief was cool. There was a corridor created by two metal railings that funneled you up to, and eventually down from, the summit. At the top there was some sort of building that had an elevator in it, and a million bugs that wanted to feast on your flesh. According to the chalk board at the visitor’s center, the visibility was 50 miles, it was a partly cloudy day, and the temperature was perfect, so we got to enjoy the summit with 500 of our closest friends as we meandered around the rock outcroppings trying to get all of the different views. After that we went back down to the parking area and looked in at the tunnel that went 400 feet into the mountain, which was cool, and cold on the inside, it felt so refreshing and slightly claustrophobic. At least if the opening to the cave got blocked, we could always take the elevator up…
It was great to see so many people on the summit of the mountain. I always get excited when I see so many people enjoying nature and being outside. It is so easy nowadays to never leave the comfort of your own home, you can literally have everything delivered, and you can literally watch everything you want on TV. So it is nice to see that when the world warms up, and people start to climb out of their upstate New York hibernations, that so many people still choose to venture out to the tops of mountains and the bases of waterfalls to enjoy the truly great things that this world has to offer. No peak is alike, and no waterfall the same, so it is important to go out and enjoy the diversity. Even if that means driving mostly to the top of the peak.
I was disappointed to have only seen two runners in the Keene Valley, the two times I went running. The road was perfect for it, there was at least a four mile stretch of flatness before it started to build up into some more difficult hills, and if you turned off the road at any point, hills were basically guaranteed. It is just so special to be able to run at the feet of all the towering peaks surrounding you. It makes it easier to take your mind off the rhythmic pitter patter of your feet falls, and instead to have your head on as swivel as you traverse over creeks and past fields that look out onto the vistas surrounding you.
The last night of the trip, I stayed up later than usual, because I was in the middle of nowhere, and that means there is minimal light pollution, and that means stars. I had not taken pictures of the stars in years, but I knew this would be a good place to give it a go again. So I went out on our rocky perch and enjoyed craning my head all the way back so I could take in all the night sky had to offer. It felt like with each passing minute, more and more stars would appear, as they slowly filled up the night sky with their varying degrees of brightness shining from unfathomable distances away. It is always a breath-taking sight to be able to take in a full night sky, and it is made even more fun by trying to create the perfect shot of them shining over a mountainous landscape.
So go if you have the chance go! Not necessarily to the Adirondacks, although I would highly suggest it, but go anywhere outdoors. Spend some time in nature. Get that big breath of crisp mountain air to fill your lungs and dip your head into a waterfall and have it rejuvenate your spirit. Turn off the distractions of the outside world and allow yourself to sit peacefully with the songs from the birds and the wind whistling through the trees. Then once you are done relaxing and exploring, finish the day off with some fresh baked pizza and a nice cold beer looking out on the mountains or desert, or beach, whatever you like best!
No Movies This Week
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