Finally, some vacation recaps!  It feels like it’s been forever, and it has been a year since our last trip of a week or more.  Last year, we flew twice – once to California for a wedding followed by a family reunion and vacation, and a month after that, to Florida for another wedding.  So my one criterion for this year’s vacation was this: no flying.  I picked four driveable locations – the Adirondacks; Maine; Smith Mountain Lake or Congaree National Park – and told Steve to choose.  He picked the Adirondacks, so we started gleefully planning a week of hiking in and around Lake Placid, New York.  We drove up to my parents’ place on a Saturday in late August, crashed overnight, then drove the rest of the way on Sunday morning – and on Monday, our first order of business was to hike.  For our first trail, we picked the Brewster Peninsula Nature Trail.  Steve signed us in at the trail register – an Adirondack must – and we were off.

First views of Lake Placid!  I grew up coming to this area all year ’round, but especially in the winter – for skiing, ice skating, and snow fun.  Our Adirondack summer fun was concentrated around the Sacandaga, although we did come to LP to kayak from time to time.  So it was a treat to get to immerse myself in the Lake Placid region for an entire week.

The sun was sparkling on the clear mountain lake.

Nugget and Peanut dove right into their favorite hiking activities.  Peanut immersed herself in tracking “the Blood,” a forest creature of her own invention (shhhh) and Nugget set up a camp kitchen.  We probably loitered by this stump for twenty minutes while he cooked up trail delicacies for the rest of the family – and the Blood.

Get your trail snacks!

I passed on the dirt pies in favor of a much more delicious trail snack – wild raspberries!  (Of course, you should never eat anything that you can’t identify.  But I grew up picking wild raspberries from the large thicket that grew around my grandparents’ camp on the Sacandaga, and I can easily tell them apart from less palatable trail produce.)  There were wild raspberries growing all over Lake Placid, and I plucked a few whenever I spotted them – which was often.

What a welcome to Lake Placid!  The Brewster Peninsula trail was fun and family friendly, but still an Adirondack trail – so there were plenty of roots and rocks to keep the terrain interesting.

And plenty of incredible views to soak in!  I kept pinching myself, because I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to be looking forward to a whole week of this.

That afternoon, Nana and Grandad arrived to share in our Adirondack fun, and we all headed over to the municipal beach on Mirror Lake.  My memories of this beach are all wintery.  I’ve tobogganed down the hill and onto the frozen lake, and practiced my skating moves here on freezing February days – but I don’t think I’ve ever waded in on a warm August day.  Time to correct that!

The kids both enjoyed running and splashing in the crystal clear water.

In addition to being gorgeous and clear, the water was also quite bracing – refreshing, sure, and we did get used to it, but after a good dousing both kids were shivering.  Time for the action to move to the beach – good thing we were well stocked with sand toys.

Nugget enjoyed dumping buckets full of sandy water all over Grandad’s feet.  Meanwhile…

It’s not an official day at the beach until Peanut has a mermaid tail.  Thanks, Nana!

What a fun welcome to Lake Placid!  I’m already plotting a way to return to that bright mountain sunshine and sparkling water.  For now, more soon.