July Adventures

I just got back to work after a week of vacation. Well, it wasn’t so great a vacation as the early July Heat Wave followed me up into the Adirondacks, where I was going to kayak the 7-lake Essex/Fulton Chain of lakes. But the temperatures were so high that I would have had a heat stroke, so I hiked up a mountain to a fire tower, took the pictures below, and then went to Old Forge for Breakfast.

Breakfast was your “typical Adirondack breakfast” that I remember so well from Raquette Lake so many years ago: It was probably terrible, but in the mountain air, and after a long hike, it tasted wonderful!!!

The first night, I just found a place to park as the sun was setting. (See pic. right.) I had had a late start leaving Salem, NH on Sunday afternoon as I wanted to make sure that I had everything I would need. I did. My planning was flawless.. (Oh, that long black object in the bottom of the picture is a boat dock; too dark to recognize.)

I managed to get to sleep with just a single mosquito for company. (Not good company!) I finally lit a citronella candle inside the truck- which nearly did-us-both-in, and just before I started choking, I heard no more buzzing. AHA! I Got him! Then…sleep.

I awoke at 5:30 a.m. because I misread my watch. I thought it was 6:30 a.m.! So, I got my shower ready and it worked perfectly. It was a little cooler than an evening shower would have been because the water bag cooled down inside the truck overnight, but it was still pleasant enough.

It quickly warmed from the balmy 79oF of night into the 89o, 90o… 94oF of day. It was simply too hot to kayak, so I took a hike through the cool, shady forest to the fire tower on Bald Mountain where I took the picture of “First Lake” below. All of my planning worked out well. The one thing I could not plan for was a truck break down. Yep. The alternator died on me. I found a good mechanic and he thought that I might be able to limp home with it, as the alternator was sometimes charging with 14volts, but then sometimes only 9 or 11 volts. Well, I drove it as far as Utica, NY and it died.

AAA arrived and towed me to a great garage, but I was soaking wet from waiting in a hot truck for 30 min (No a/c without electricity!). So I spent the night in a Hampton Inn (which had a great Breakfast), and I was on my way again at 12noon the next day. I figured that God wanted me to get back to Salem, and since the temps were still 94oF I wrote-off kayaking until a cooler time.

That cooler time came on Sunday July 8th. I went out on Millville Lake (Salem, NH), and had coffee and a breakfast sandwich on the lake. It was peaceful and very calm. And only 65oF! Ahhh!