After nearly an entire year at home, we have been to see friends on Long Island, K’s parents in Schenectady, and out camping in the Adirondacks.  It has been good to get away from our usual routines.

The camping site was water-access only — a first for the boys and me.

We lucked out with the weather — which, this year means that it didn’t rain very much or at an inopportune time.  After childhood vacations on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where the water is so frigid, swimming is possible (generally) only by getting numb by degrees,  almost anything else seems warm, and this was no exception.  Even without a baking, hot sun, swimming was a delight.

One of us didn’t bother with the swimming.  But, with a view of the lake and a good book, who can blame him?!  I also did a lot of reading — ironically, an Elizabeth George mystery where the double murder takes place at a campsite!

Even Jack, the Corgi, made it to the top of Baldface Mt.  He only needed a little assistance a couple of times.  The bugs were busy on C’s legs, and some of the muck was difficult to avoid (I went ankle deep in one little gully), but otherwise, an easy hike.

This place was fun, with its vintage textiles, pressed glass dishes, typewriters, old kitchen tools, mixing bowls, buttons, salt and pepper shakers, etc.  It still shocks me (oh shut up Boomer, right?) to see items from my childhood in antique stores — like the Davy Crocket lunch box that Jimmy Trojan, say, in the fourth grade could have carried his lunch to school in.  Danny was particularly taken with a typewriter.  Thank goodness K & I had recently remembered what life was like without PCs, because at that moment I didn’t have the energy to explain that all my college papers were written on something comparable.

I bought a little piece of lace and will count the miles come April 2010… Hear that, IRS?!!