Come Friday, our muscles were weary, our eyes were baggy, and we were single-mindedly ready to engage in the universal American vacation activity – blatant consumerism. How else are others supposed to know you were where you were if there’s no stickers, no shirts, no knick knacks? To finish this final quest, we headed into the tourist belly of the beast, Lake Placid.
Lake Placid in winter is a pleasant, albeit chilly, slice of heaven. In summer? Pigeon Forge of the north. This is neither bad nor good, it simply is. As much as I hate on commercialization, I was excited for the one thing Lake Placid had nowhere else in the North Country had – big ass burritos. In the winter, Stilly had gotten this gigantic burrito when Alex and I were more in the mood for some healthy fare, but now summer was upon us and I was ready to gorge myself on gratuitous American portions.
The burrito joint was in a little strip of shops sharing seating. Audrey and I grabbed beers from a neighboring bar, where the bartender clearly hated the fact that customers she wasn’t personally friends with already existed. Beer tastes the same regardless of service, I suppose, but our southern sensibilities remained a bit bruised. When we all got our food, my hubris got the best of me as I began to chow down with no mind for pace or endurance. I hate to admit it, but as I got to the last few bites, I began dissociating like I had too much to drink and all I could do was drop it and throw it away. A few bites left from glory, and I had been defeated. Goddamn.
We darted in and out of shops, getting our obligatory maple syrup and poking fun at the husk of EMS. I wished we were doing something a bit more active or at least a bit more away from civilization, but I don’t know that we had the collective wherewithal to do much more than walk around aimlessly among the droves of tourists.
On the drive back, I nearly crashed Baby Blue as to our left we saw a seaplane taking off. We ran out of the car, watching initially in wonderment, which soon turned to annoyance, as the plane continued to skate across the water at a relaxed pace. It was a perfect excuse to walk around Long Lake a bit more, though, before heading back to the cabin.
It wasn’t an eventful day, but after a jam-packed week, it was probably the decompression day before driving that everyone needed. As much as I’d love to finish it out with a big hike or climb or at least something a bit more natural or cultural, it served as yet another reminder pertaining to the importance of balance.
The next day, we flinged our bodies in our respective vehicles for the long trek home. Stopping in a coffee shop a half hour in, Audrey and I were stopped by a gal from Florida. She said we looked like we were outdoorsy, and asked for our recommendations of local hikes. As one adventure ends, another begins. A passing of the torch in the North Country.
- Epilogue
I finish out this North Country series sitting in a Hatteras hippie shack alone, listening to Pharoah Sanders, sipping on cheap wine. I want to write something introspective, reflective, something that you’ll always think of and carry as some sort of grand life advice, or at least something you say “huh, interesting” and then proceed to forget about within 24 hours. All I can say, though, is damn what a summer. What a trip.
Visiting the North Country has become something of a biannual tradition it seems. As I write this, plans are underway for another wintry excursion, using what we’ve learned to better use our time and more efficiently freeze our asses off, hopefully without losing a camera in the process. You’d think we’d change it up. Go to the Whites or the Smokies or Acadia or make our way westwards to the open sky. Maybe we will, one day. But, there’s still things I wish I could’ve done, I wish to do. Things I want to see, people to meet, people to bring, experiences to have. Some places get smaller the more time you spend there, but the Adirondacks only get bigger.
It was a good crew. We all played on one another’s strengths and covered one another’s weaknesses as needed. There’s things I may wish to change selfishly, for my personal benefit or enjoyment, but overall with a holistic approach there’s not much I’d change or do differently. If I’d known my hand would be ok enough to climb, I think I’d have brought my sport kit and gotten folks to bring their respective gear so we could spend Friday climbing, but maybe it’s for the best that revelation only dawned on me during the trip. There’s always next year.
I’m grateful to have people in my life that I can share somewhere as significant to me as the North Country with. We all grew closer, and gained a better understanding of each other. At least I feel that way. I can be… guarded. Trying to change that has been nerve-wracking and rarely a straight line of progress. To have folks I can be vulnerable around, it’s big, albeit sometimes embarrassing and possibly contradictory to the beat-esque dirtbagging vision I can have of myself, at times. Frankly, they teach me as much about myself as I learn about myself left to my own devices. Sometimes those lessons leave me with more questions than answers.
It’d be easier alone, but easier isn’t better. There’s a part of me that sincerely hopes this time next year I’ll be writing from my new home out west or up north or really anywhere but the Mid-Atlantic. There’s places to go, things to experience, life to be had. A whole world out there. And then I’ll look in the eyes of someone and be reminded that there’s whole galaxies swirling in there. That sounds cringy as shit. This wine’s piss poor but makes me sappy all the same. You get the drift, though. I’d probably be starting square one. There’s pros and cons, but sometimes I forget that there’s as many pros to staying as there are to going off somewhere new. As much as I enjoy my solo adventuring, I do get lonely. It’s been a hard thing to admit. Sometimes it’s easier alone, not better alone.
This isn’t one of those times, though, as I write from Hatteras. I’ll leave the details for a future post, but I do genuinely need my time to fuck off from everything and just write, photograph, listen to music, soak in some sun, and chat with the world around me. Next week I might go backpacking in Dolly Sods, or at least something to that effect as a last hoorah as grad school fastly approaches. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel woefully underprepared as I have a million surface level ideas for my portfolio and not a damn one I can tangibly sink my teeth into yet. Part of this solo excursion is me hopefully changing that, with waves and wine my only distraction for the next few days.
Life continues. Some things will change and some things will stay the same, both to and against my liking. It’s been quite a summer, and it isn’t quite over yet.