I’m pushing this post through production in rapid pace so I’m going to miss some important things. It’s 11pm now and I’m waking up tomorrow at 6 to start a drive to Pittsburgh to attend a party of a friend who is getting married. This aside, I spent the past week in Lake Placid for our annual family vacation and it more than met our expectations. I started last week at a Ck4 bachelor party but that’s going to have to take the back burner while this trip is fresh in my mind. I’ll try to document that party and Pittsburgh in a post on Sunday.

I staggered out of the Golden Inn in Avalon at 9am on Sunday prepared to make a 6+ hour drive to Lake Placid. I wasn’t feeling 100% but that wasn’t going to stop me from making killer time. I ate a Chicken Carbonara at Quizno’s along the way and enjoyed the solitude and music for what seemed like a long time. I arrived at around 4pm with my family just hanging out. In hindsight I wish I took a few pictures of our cabin because it was quite unique. There were horseshoes and a fire pit in the backyard and a stuffed moose, bears, and wilds cats hanging from the inside. It was quite luxurious actually and a perfect set up for us. When I first got there we killed some time playing Guess Who and Sam and I noticed the (hopefully) not resemblance to our characters in the game.

Since it was almost dinner time we headed out to a place that didn’t serve alcohol which was a pleasant surprise (this would be symbolism to how it started compared to how it ended) and the dinner went quite well. I ate a trout with its head attached. We spent late night sitting around the fire and shooting the shit. We were brainstorming ideas to revolutionize the world and a spinning upside down toilet held the top of the list. This was a joke obviously but imagine the shit storm.

JC was raving about the Legends of the Oval (a group of 5 speed skaters who took many medals in Olympics) and the Olympic Training facility of Lake Placid (it held the 1932 and 1980 winter Olympics) so we took a tour of the area. In 1980, the now Herb Brooks arena was the setting for the famous “miracle on ice” when the USA beat the USSR. They now use the arena as an ice rink for tourists. We also saw some young female figure skating hopefuls in a different part of the arena. Watching these girls in person was dangerous.

Lake Placid is an awesome setting and is first class all the way. The main strip is filled with bars and shopping that everyone can enjoy. There is also a lake right next to Lake Placid called Mirror Lake and we went paddleboarding and kayaking on one of the days. It was quite peaceful and enjoyable until I had to take a shit and realized I was stranded in a lake. Jeff and Sam also picked up some 16? year old females along the way. We also went on some family hikes and enjoyed good meals. I thought the running environment was top notch with this summer atmosphere having nearly no humidity. There was plenty to do and even though we didn’t really hit the night life the way I would have liked to, it was certainly enjoyable and relaxing.

On Thursday, Jeff, Sam, and I decided to challenge ourselves on a 13+ mile hike along a trail called the Gothics. I am a pretty novice hiker and have never thought that hiking was much of a challenge. I’ve reconsidered that position. We set off at about 9am without a map, 6 bottles of water, 3 sandwiches, some triscuits, and 2 peanut butter bars. Jeff assured us we’d be fine. The group was in high spirits and we came across this awesome falls within about an hour of our hike.

At this point we made an error. I saw a path, pointed it out to the guys and we took it. This proved to be the wrong way as we completely missed the other entry point to another trail (I’ll take the blame here). What ended up happening is that, without our knowledge, we starting taking a longer, less direct route up the mountain without knowing it. What we thought was going to be a 6 miles hike one way, turned into somewhere closer to 8. This might not sound like a big deal but this was some of the most physically exhausting work I’ve ever put in. There were multiple times where my heart was beating out of my chest like I’ve never felt before. Combine this with having insufficient water and you had yourself a bit of a problem. After 3.5 hours of hiking, we reached our actual destination and were granted with this incredible view from the top of the Gothics.

Getting to the top was the first part of our journey which we did successfully, the ride back down wasn’t so easy. Getting to the top had my legs built with so much lactic acid that any uphill made them tired. This mountain isn’t exactly a straight shot so even when you are descending thousands of feet, there are still series of uphills. Combine this with the fact that we didn’t know where we were going exactly and you had a hell of a situation. The last two hours of the trail I hate to say were not enjoyable. It started to rain in huge amounts and we were soaked head to toe but didn’t care at that point. At the falls on the way back, Sam and I were so dehydrated that we were scooping out handfuls of water from the lake not caring if diarrhea was going to be the end result. We eventually got back to our car but this was easily one of the hardest physical challenges I’ve undertaking in quite a while. I was full sweat multiple times and felt unprepared more than that. Nevertheless though, it makes for a great experience and view.

That pretty much summed up the vacation and I would go on with more details but I really have to get some shut eye. I’ll post back in a few days.