The Tree Family Goes To The Adirondacks

“Trip Report!!!!!!

It started on Saturday, December 21 and ended today. We set out for the Lake George region in the beautiful Adirondack Park of upstate New York. Our goals were to see the area, spend some valuable, quality family time together and go snow tubing on West Mountain. And not necessarily in that order. The ride up Saturday was beautiful, but basically uneventful in words. It was about a five hour venture until we arrived at the Days Inn hotel that we would stay at for the first night. One major obstacle that we were facing was a 'bug' that was running between family members. At this point, the only ones affected were my daughter and myself. This may be a good time to introduce the players in this little melodrama (if you don't know us already). I am 'Treebeard', my wife 'Mapleleaf', daughter 'Twignut' and introducing for his debut on TT, the 'Entling,' our 10 year old dynamo. The hotel had an indoor swimming pool, so we used our evening swimming, although the cold didn't make that a smart thing for Twignut and I to do. So, we got a good night's sleep and ventured out in the morning for our cabin with the kitchen and fireplace that we were to call home for the next 48 hours. Only problem was Maple, in her infinite wisdom, neglected to bring our itinerary. So, imagine our surprise as the potential reality of going home, without having the slightest idea where we are supposed to be, started to become closer and closer to happening. The good people at the Days Inn called everyone in the Lake George region that were even remotely capable of renting out something resembling a cabin. Well, don't you know that we exhausted every possibility without success. Now, I'm not known for cruelty. (Takes a lot to piss off an ent)- j/k). So, I didn't want to make my poor little baby feel bad. We figured that if we could get internet access, we could get the info we needed. Doesn't it figure that there is no one we could reach out to that had access and the library (only public access known in the area) was closed. We started out for the Diamond Point region and started tracking down signs and stopping in different places that seemed possible. Well, one stop wielded success. They gave Maple the internet access she needed and found our cabin for us. We went in and, at this point, I was feeling better but the Entling was getting real sick and wanted to go home. Imagine what music that was to my ears...Well, the cabin was beautiful and, as soon as the Entling saw it, he changed his tune, but opted not to go snow tubing.

Which brings me to the good stuff. Snow tubing was really fun. Getting a good head of steam was really great and loads of fun going down that hill. Just as good was being dragged back up by being hooked to the tow line. If you haven't done this and you enjoy this kind of thing, it is a real blast! Well, two hours of that was actually pretty fulfilling and we left to go back to the cabin for an incredible BBQ ribs dinner, cooked by the Treebeard himself. This was followed by a good game of 'Risk' (New Lord Of The Rings Version). Good family time, People!

The next day, we took a trip up north until we almost reached Lake Placid. I mean, the freakin' signs were in French at this point. Knew we were getting close to the Canadians at this point. However, we were in the heart of the Adirondacks and Maple was in all her blessed glory. People, those Mountains are awesome. I know they are not quite like what is out west, but for the east, they really are big. We stopped in a few places to take some pix of some of the beauty we were looking at. At one point, we saw what looked like a parking area you would see at a typical Trail Head. But, when we looked at the sign, it was directed to climbers (or Grimpers - French). When we looked down the embankment, we saw a frozen over and snowed over lake with a very steep mountain scross the way. It appeared that some of the people who owned the cars parked there had walked across and were ice climbing. We heard some distant voices and scoped out what they were doing. These guys were hacking away with their hammers and climbing up a very dangerous looking mountain of ice. It was quite a sight. We continued on looking at very picturesque scenery and made our way back. At this point, Twignut became very sick, and we realized that we would just wind down and try to make it out of there the following morning without any hitches. To Maple's credit, (and contrary to the predictions on the other thread that was taking bets on her disaster potential) we made it back fine. Maple didn't get eaten by Coyotes. She didn't get carried off by a large bird. She didn't get winged by a borderline psychotic lumberjack. And she didn't get her tongue stuck to a mountain of ice. Sorry to disappoint you guys... Please check our pictures out. Sorry for the Violin length intro. And thanx for staying with us.

http://community.webshots.com/user/mapleleafnyc”

“Sorry to hear that you all were feeling under the weather but the pictures are great - have a very Merry Christmas and hope you all get better as soon as possible!”

“Thanx, TT! Maple is starting to feel the 'bug'. Hope it's just tiredness and residual of the trip.”

“Merry Xmas guys! Great pix, sorry to hear about everyone feeling sick- Sounds like you had a great time regardless.”

“Please see "What will Maple come home with?" Thread

and heres a link for the albums

Maple Leaf Webshots Albums”

“Looks like you had a blast!”

“They also get a FREE band & fireworks for July 4th (or there-a-bouts). You can sit close up or maintain some space by watching from various points on the slopes. My brother-in-law (hiking partner) lives one street up from there where our Olympic runners sometimes train.”

“That's pretty cool, Cats! Didn't know they had that at the 4th. Willl remember that”

“Thanx, folks for sharing the pix with us. It was a real blast. Maple is officially sick and miserable in her office. As for myself and the kids, we are just getting over it. Back to work, I guess. Boy, am I ever unmotivated!!”

“Oh, also want to thank Pathman for the link to our pictures. We had a great time.”

“Sounds like it was a great time, glad you guys had fun. Hope you guys can join us there for a hiking trip sometime.”

“We will, Artex! Soon enough. Also, look for the threads that have ideas for snow events. We've been batting that around for the last day or so.”

“How about helping shovel my driveway???”

“I shovel enough #&%!$ here!!”

“I'm wondering what the Tree family tree looks like.”

“here you go Lyndys,


we had a blast! we left just in time to miss the 2 feet of snow :(”

“Ooops sorry, you posted it while I was gone. I though you were coming back later than that.”

“Sounds like you all had a great trip even with the illness. The pictures were fun. The cabin really looked like a nice place. The snowtubing, is it safe for 8-10 year olds? It looks like a ton of fun.”

“yes, i found the tubing to be safe. There were alot of little kids going down the BIG slope. You shoud think about going on the trip to Mass in Feb with your family!!”