Post-Election Defrag
Christian & I did ourselves a solid and booked a few nights away from the internet post-election. After volunteering on Election Day & a pit stop at QED to watch results, we trekked up to the Adirondacks for some fresh air, hiking & history.
Along the way, we stopped in Saratoga Springs where the Woman Suffrage Association was formed to pay some respects for my right to vote & tell them the good news about Kamala. Thanks ladies (& gents) who fought so hard to enact women’s sufffrage. I know that VP-elect Harris will make them proud. And as a fellow Gen-X(ish) career woman with no children, I’m stoked to have some representation.
At Lake Placid we stayed at the darling Van Hoevenberg Cabins, hiked a mountain (only 3100 elevation so not hard), walked around the lake, ate outside The Pickled Pig thanks to unseasonably warm weather, visited the 1980 Olympic cauldron and rode a bobsled roller coaster along the original 1932 bobsled track. We passed the training facility for bobsledders who were out warming up and practicing various exercises. Pretty neat. That night at the cabin the sky was clear to see the Milky Way & so many planets and stars. Dreamy.
On our way out of town we stopped at abolitionist John Brown Farm State Historic Site and burial grounds. The farm has acres of trails and a self-guided audio tour via calling a phone number. I studied the Civil War and Reconstruction at Columbia with historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Foner for two years (2017 – 2019) so was very familiar with Bleeding Kansas and Harper’s Ferry. It was nice to bring history to life and share my knowledge with Christian who already knows so much about everything. It was a first for me to be able to school him. On the farm, we were entranced by the mirrored lake. You could actually see the moon in the reflection (I highly saturated one pic so it’s easier for you to spot).
From there we stopped in Saugerties for a hike along the Hudson River then Kingston where I showed Christian the church my Dutch ancestors founded in 1661. We left a prayer on their wall, popped into a book shop and then ran into Joe Garden. Running into an old comedy pal from NYC should be wild but I just knew I’d see him. I really did. The last time I made a random trek through Woodstock I ran into him, and when I suggested a stop in Saugerties I told myself I’d see Joe. Just turns out it was in Kingston instead. We had a great dinner then drove home in the dark so slowly and dodging deer but made it in time to catch Kamala Harris’s historic speech and also Biden.
We were there between fall and ski season so much was closed but the weather and hikes and history were all that we wanted and needed.
