The camping trip was a lot of fun though. Even if we did get cut short and even if I did come off the mountain feeling pretty crappy. We drove up to Lake George, NY from Albany, stopping briefly to get a few things at an Eastern Mountain Supply store, and lunch, in Saratoga Springs. Here's a link to the hike that we did. The Tongue Mountain Range. I said it was fun but the following description is going to make me sound practically sadistic.
We were supposed to hike up to the first lean-to about 3 miles in, camp and then do part of the loop, possibly camping further in and making it back to the car early Sunday morning. We revised this plan when we saw the lean-to was free and decided we'd take what we needed in our day packs leaving the larger ones behind in the lean-to, so that we could make good time around the loop on Saturday and camp in the same spot Saturday night so we'd be near the car.
Then, of course, that plan got blown out too. We knew as we watched the sun set from a clearing near the lean-to, a rain cloud slowly creeping up, that the weather was going to figure pretty prominently in our plans for the next day.
We couldn't start a fire because everything was too damp, though we tried for an hour or so. An earlier attempt to use stove fuel to get something going proved futile even if it did almost singe my eyebrows. (This, immediately after J. Scott said to me, as I was trying to light the fire a bit too cautiously, "I didn't put that much on there." Famous last words.) Our decision to cut things short, though we made it the next morning upon seeing the rain finally start in earnest, was actually somewhat influenced by this inability to ignite anything. The camping stove was leaking fuel too, so between that and our lack of campfire, hot food wasn't an option.
We slept pretty soundly in that old lean-to but shortly after we woke and saw the rain starting and felt the cold chill in the air, the lean-to began to leak, first above my head and then above J. Scott's. A futile attempt was made to repair the camping stove but peanut butter sandwiches ended up being the breakfast of choice. We then agreed on a plan to hike back to the car, drop our packs and take a smaller pack each, filled with snacks and water, back up the mountain to explore the shorter Dear Leap out-and-back trail. This took us to a nice vista of the lake and the town of Hulett's Landing on the far shore. The wind was so heavy that even from our height we could see white caps in the lake.
Dreaming of diner coffee and steak and eggs, we hiked back up the steep incline and back to the car. Both pairs of socks I was wearing were thoroughly soaked when we arrived at the car because my boots are no longer water-proof apparently. When I sat down in the car, I felt like I had fever and my bones were chilled. It was a bizarre sensation, but I guess it was I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a nylon wind-breaker over it and the hike had simultaneously heated me up and chilled my extremities. Though I had wrapped my knee before attempting the hike, it throbbed something awful, too.
No matter. We had called my aunt before setting out to inform her of our predicament. She offered to have us over so we could get out of the rain and put us up for the night. Before heading down there, though, we found a little street side diner where I got my much sought after steak and eggs and was able to charge my phone and call my aunt to talk logistics. We took our time getting down there and made sure we showed up with food and drinks...never mind that it took a wild goose chase around the towns of Coxsackie and Athens and several back roads in between to find a grocery store that was actually across the street from our first stopping point in Coxsackie; the liquor store. I'm a terrible navigator and was not able to redeem myself the whole weekend.
Anyway, as a result of my plan and my aunt's hospitality, I had a nice relaxing evening as opposed to trying to sleep out in the rain again. She made us a dinner of ham and cabbage with potatoes (just the thing on a cold evening) and J. Scott and I watched the Florida Gators game until my aunt returned from her defensive driving course. That night I slept like a rock. Forget that the Adirondacks beat us. We were comfortable.
This evening I still feel pretty sick though and my leg is not happy at all so I'm taking the night off work to recover. Hopefully, I can stay off my leg for a day and give it some time to actually get better. Because this Wednesday, I have plans to go to the Statue of Liberty with a friend. And I'm pretty sure there's no elevator there.
Coming back home to Brooklyn was interesting. The contractors worked in my apartment at a break-neck pace this weekend and did sort of a sloppy job. The new sheet rock is stained through brown from the dampness of the bricks and it doesn't even look as though they did anything but make it worse, at least aesthetically. If I don't hear from my landlord tomorrow about our demands as per the rent for this month and our security deposit, he'll be hearing from me. With any luck, we'll be looking at new apartments by the end of the week and not this:
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| Messed up Kitchen |
The prospects for this week are starting to look worse than that other week I was complaining about a few entries ago when nothing would go right. This time, I have a bum leg, I'm getting a cavity filled on Tuesday, I'm still in a crappy apartment and I could go on but I won't. I found a four-leaf clover today while waiting for the bus in Albany and couldn't help but hope that my luck might change soon. We'll see.
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