Fair Haven and board games at home

 

Concerts and apples

Sim and Nate acoustic show at Cider House. A perfect night with a tetherball that the kids loved. We should have gotten there earlier so our pizzas might have been done before the concert was over....

Apple picking at Navarino's. Zestar and Paula Red.

My friend Colleen invited me to the James Taylor-Jackson Browne concert at the St. Joe's Amphitheatre. They don't have the parking or entrance stuff worked out yet but the location is superb and it was a spectacular night.

 

ADK trip Day 2

Fish Creek Campground near Saranac Inn. Our campsite was right on the lake, but ended up not having an opportunity to swim.

Hiking Cascade Mountain and Mt. Porter, two of the Adirondack High Peaks. It was the most strenuous hike I've ever done. Trail was mostly navigating around boulders on what looked like an old riverbed, but often required scaling sheer granite walls. We didn't have to go on past the summit of Cascade to Mt. Porter but Beckett was excited about doing two high peaks, so onward we went. We couldn't figure out where the summit was but we did summit two bald mountains that looked like they might be the summit, so we're counting it as a win. Beckett bounded up every trail, often waiting for me to catch up. We had great conversations about everything under the sun, in between my catching my breath. We were low on snacks and water, as I did not expect the hike to take 6 hours, and had a hard time finding lunch afterward because it was so late in the afternoon. The summit of Cascade was totally fogged in when we got there (around 10:30am) but on the way back down as the fog cleared we had some good views. 

Once we got a little food in our bellies we wanted to see some good views but without hiking to get there. We took the Whiteface gondola (twice!) up to the top of Little Whiteface and enjoyed some great views on the way up and down and (on the second trip) at the top out to Lake Placid.

No view the first trip up.

Better views the second time up.

 

Beckett-Mama ADK trip Day 1

I invited each of the kids to choose a location to have a special one-on-one trip with me. Beckett was the first to choose, so his trip was scheduled first. He asked to go camping and hiking. When I first scheduled it, in June, we had to postpone because Joan had a surgery I needed to accompany her to. We rescheduled to August 17-19, unaware that several hurricanes would be approaching and would join to create a monster rain storm. Nevertheless we persisted. The views and vistas were unfortunately poor, but the company was A+.

Mt. Arab Fire Tower hike.

The Wild Center, Tupper Lake.