Adirondacks 2012 Part One: Eating, Biking, and Eating

 The Flower House, Bird Pond Road, North Creek, NY

13 July 2012

Too much stuff was going on.  Jack had been embroiled in the legislative mess that made hash out of two universities at once.  Our house, needing paint, wound up with its bones exposed, and with me and the contractor hauling new windows to the second floor from the outside.  Jack took pictures.  But that's the subject of another post.

Long story short, an hour after the second set of windows came to rest in the gaping hole, we departed for the Adirondacks, by way of Cherry Grove Farm, because it was pick-up day, and then Rutgers-Newark, because Jack had left his reading glasses in his office.

Five hours later we emerged at unit 16, where Bob, Norene, Nancy, and Marilyn had already stuffed the fridge with food enough for a week.  I filled the remaining crevices with fresh greens.

Jeff was there, too.  "Don and Mary Anne are down at Bar Vino.  They say there's no seating.  We ordered pizza."

Long-time readers with a good memory might remember that in years past North Creek was devoid of cell signals.  Lucky renters might be able to poach off a neighbor's wi-fi.  So how did Jeff know and do all this?

I was looking down at my phone, just for the hell of it.  "I've got five bars!  Must be a fluke."

Everyone with AT&T had five bars.  Verizon people had nothing.  "Yeah," Don said later, "They put a tower somewhere in North Creek."  Then he and Jack disappeared upstairs to re-start the router.  Minutes later we all had wi-fi signals.

That came in handy the next day, when nobody felt like doing much of anything.  Terry and I texted each other every few hours, he with updates on when he'd be on the road, and me with good news about connectivity and wine.

Jack had forgotten to pack his toothbrush; a few of us went into town on the pretense of getting him one.  We wandered into an eclectic store, rustic, bursting with Adirondackalia.  I found a moose necktie.  Jack approved.  It's not an easy thing to balance wackiness with tastefulness.  This tie was almost there.

Back in the house we made potluck and plans.  Our bike ride would be Thursday.  I had the route from two years ago ready, cue sheet and all.  But nobody wanted to ride that far or climb that much in what was promising to be a hot day with no air conditioning.  Jeff pulled out his phone and found a route on mapmyride.com that was shorter and started in town.  He sent me the link and I tweaked the route on my laptop later that night.  I showed it to Don and we were good to go.

We got up early Thursday morning, too early for vacation.  Don and I were the leaders.  Marilyn, Jeff, and Terry were the good sports. My helmet camera was in place and properly charged.

Starting a ride with a wicked descent seems like a good idea at the time.

This is the descent from our condos at Gore Village. (Go ahead and click on it; the link will open in a new tab.)

This is the Hudson River crossing in North Creek.

Last year, and the year before, I posted pictures of the Flower House. This year I took more pictures, and got a somewhat fishbowly video of it too.


The still shots won't make you as dizzy.

Don and Marilyn descend Bird Pond Road

I recorded a lot of videos, but there's not much to see.  Unlike in Hunterdon County, where far too much of the forests have been cleared for agriculture, most of the tops of hills around North Creek are still forested.  If you're into it, you can follow this link and bore yourself silly on my YouTube page.

I did get a glimpse of a mountain on Bird Pond Road.

The best part of the ride was when we found the pond in Pottersville. 

The sign said "no trespassing." We stayed behind it.

I heard the roar behind me before I had a chance to catch the full length of the truck.

That's about a third of it.  Logging still happens in the Adirondacks.

Don and I had managed to psych everyone out about the Big Hill.  "Remember that hill we came down two years ago?  The one where Marilyn dropped her pump and the logging truck ran over it?"  I remember coming around a curve with the logging truck roaring behind me.  I remember going pretty fast once the truck had passed me.  Still, with Miss Piggy under me and Morris County behind me (Chris!), I wasn't worried.

As it turned out, we didn't have to be.  While it's always helpful to descend a hill one is going to climb later, in order to get the lay of the land, it can backfire too.  A fast descent doesn't always translate to a miserable ascent.  When we all gathered at the top, Marilyn said, "It was spoon-fed, a little at a time."

There's no getting around the last hill, though:  the Gore Village driveway.  Here I am, getting one last sip of water before hauling myself back up.

It was still before noon when we were done.  A few people were still in the condos; others had gone sight-seeing.  I went inside, ate, showered, and ate some more.

That afternoon, I drove Jack and Terry an hour south to Saratoga Springs, where I loaded up on coffee beans from Saratoga Coffee Traders.  Terry and I sat at a table drinking iced coffee and talking about brewing techniques.

Meanwhile, Jack had gone off to buy used books.  We met up with him at Putnam Wines.  Terry and Jack buried themselves in all things winey; I watched, amused at the flowery, exuberant language the salesman used to describe each bottle Jack asked about.  There needs to be a word for a knowledgeable wine salesman.  Maybe Jim can Latin one up for us.  After Jack filled a bag with bottles, we found a wine bar.  We ordered food, knowing full well that we'd be going back to more potluck in a few hours.

I have to backtrack here because I'm remembering things out of order.
 
Between dinner and dessert of our July 4 potluck, Norene scurried off and came back with Chuck the Cluck, a rubber chicken that went on the antiquities cruise through Italy with Norene and Bob last month.  She didn't know I was taking pictures as she told stories of where Chuck had been.

 Rome: "Bless this chicken!"

 My chicken is THIS big!

 "So I said to the waiter..."

"So that's Chuck!"

He squeaks, by the way.  He's meant to be a dog toy.  Later that evening I stuck his beak onto an unopened bottle of wine.  Before heading to bed, I pinned him between the door and rear-view mirror of Bob and Norene's car.  She didn't see him there til the next morning.

Oh, and one more thing.  For Jim, of course.  He's seen this picture already, and of course I sent it to Jane, but I have to post it here because, well, you'll see.  This was on the wall in one of our North Creek condo bathrooms:

On that note, good night.  There's a big hike coming up in the next post.  I hope to finish it after Cheryl drags us into the PA hills tomorrow morning before the rain hits.