Friday after work I took the PATH to Hoboken to meet Vijay at Stevens, where he's currently post-docing. I definitely heart the PATH...cheaper than the subway and just as fast. We met up with Emily and Haninah and hit the road with some shockingly good Greek food. When we got to the cabin in bustling Keene, NY, it seemed like nobody was there. We walked in, dropped our stuff on beds and followed faint laugher to the bunkhouse where lots of wonderful people (I believe at that point it was Becky, Dave, Brad, Casandra, and Sarah) were finishing up a highly competitive game of Monopoly. We grabbed beers and just a few minutes later, Jen and Lee walked in, bringing our number to a respectable 11. We chatted and joked until about 3 am and all crashed for the eve.
Saturday morning we all convened outside for breakfast. Whereas the night before we were stunned by the stars, then we were stunned by the mountain view. I played a mean game of Bocce with Jen and Dave, who then had to leave for his grandfather's funeral. Yeah, not the highlight there. We also got introduced to the awesome dog, Lulu, pictured with Brad at right (I really like that shot). We, now Daveless and Leeless due to the funeral and general exhaustion, respectively, took a short hike. The top of the mountain was just about the windiest place ever, so we didn't spend too long up there, just long enough to let Cas celebrate Canadia Day (that's that weird moose-ish country, right?), as you can see below. Saturday evening we stopped at the deliciously neighborhoody Noon Mark Diner before a great fireworks display. The friends devised a firework rating system that eventually had to be normalized. We said the newly rated fireworks must feel like people from our grade who got 1600s on their SATs and will now be thought less-than-brilliant students when they attempt to boast. Poor newly marked 7s on the firework scale. Woe to the firework of moderate size with only one explosion.
On Sunday more people arrived. Woo! Alexandria showed up, Hannah in tow, and Brad went to grab Daniel Effon and came back with both him and Noa Wheeler: two great surprises in the "people I've always really liked but never spent quite enough time with" category. I went with Jen, Lee and Alexandria to ice skate at the Olympic arena, where there were four rinks, none of them open to the public. GREAT. So we went to the lake next to Lake Placid and played word games with Daniel and Noa. Much fun. We headed to a great place called Caribbean Cowboy where I had a totally rockin' blue cheese burger and sat with Brad, Cas and Daniel (who has one of the world's winninger smiles). Good table. Good times. That night was hanging out in the pavilion, a wood gazebo about 50 yards from the cabin. Alexandria did some mad fiddling to Hannah's guitar background and we roasted s'mores in the fire.
Monday was a mad rush to get crepes for Jen, who'd been wanting them bad since two years ago when she visited the same place. We made it by noon, when they'd told us they stopped serving the day before, but it turned out that on Mondays it was 11:30. Well fuck you, too, crepe place! So Lee, Sarah and I headed back to go hiking (Jen kindly drove us), while Alexandria stayed with Brad's car, which dropped off Cas on her 18 mile run (training much?). We hiked up Cascade, one of the 46 Adirondacks over 4000 feet. Things got so sweaty Dave and the other guys had to take their shirts off. What a shame. Can't you feel my salty, wet tears? Right. The climb was harsh, and on the way up, I realized my head started throbbing every time we stopped, but I didn't think much of it...heads will throb. Besides, we were playing some serious Botticelli. 
Apparently Sarah Gustafson is the most cultured person in the world. We spent an hour getting her down to "Renaissance Italian man involved in music, but not mainly a composer, player or commissioner, starts with S ends in US." She kept fending off our stumpers! But really, can you get that? It wasn't until Becky said "maybe an instrument maker?" that we all simultaneously turned around and screamed "STRADIVARIUS!" By that point we were victoriously on the glorious summit. Woohoo! And that's when the headache started to kick into gear. About halfway down the mountain I told them I needed to stop: My stomach was NOT doing well. After a few minutes, I told them to head up a few yards, I'd be there soon. Which is how I wound up on my hands and knees in the dirt, vomiting in the woods. My entire body buzzed afterwards. My limbs felt ridiculously light, like I could hardly control their movement. I did the vomiting thing once more, but we made it down, and when we got back into the house, despite being as sweaty and dirty as I've ever been, I crashed on my bed and slept for an hour.
When I got up and showered, the bbq in the pavilion was ready. The food was great and the migraine proved to be excellent X-treme catharsis. I felt buzzy but totally calm. After dinner we gathered round the fire (of doom!) and sang folk songs, including my new favorite, "The MTA Song," a political ditty about a man who gets stuck on the Boston subway for life due to a sudden fare increase. The only way to prevent yourself from ending up like poor Charlie is to "Vote for George O'Brien!" It's pretty hilarious. The other song I'm obsessed with post-trip is Silvia Nott's "Til Hamingju Island," the Icelandic entry in Eurovision 2006 that Vijay played in the car. Totally awesome. After dinner it was to bed, Alexandria now next to me, thanks to Haninah's unexpected (HA) absence.The following morning was all about waffles, packing up and heading back. And that's all there is to tell for now folks. The best weekend ever concludes. Now to make it the best week ever: Hey, NY Supreme Court...want to rule for gay marriages? That'd be good.
1 comment:
Love the post title! ;-)
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