Peaking

Pete, Shelley and Peggi walking by the Funny Farm near Paradox, New York
Pete, Shelley and Peggi walking by the Funny Farm near Paradox, New York

We were not off the grid that long, just a little over 24 hours, when my watch beeped with some Trump alert. We were out for a walk and had just passed a place the locals call the Funny Farm and I stepped into a hotspot that I wasn’t able to zero in on again. The temperature had dropped below zero the night before and our sleeping bags were not up to it but a couple cups of cowboy coffee straightened that out. There is not that much difference between that and our French Press.

It is no secret that Pete is a gourmet cook. There is a Bayou bent to his favorite recipes and an incredibly resourceful streak to his situation, their location in a mountainous food desert. For breakfast we had a homemade curry dish that started with celery and salt in oil on the wood stove. Chick peas, started from the dry position, were the main ingredient, but the cinnamon in the curry stole the show.

Once back on the grid we discovered that our calendar had changed so we decided to drive up to Lake Placid, an idyllic, small city in the high peaks of the Adirondacks. Our skis were in the car but there wasn’t enough snow to ski on. We should have brought ice skates. Mirror Lake was a giant sheet of glass, a mirror in fact. We whooped it up in the hotel with a flight of scotch at the bar before bed and smoked salmon with chopped red onion and capers for breakfast. I asked the waitress if we could walk around Mirror Lake and said, yes, just follow the red sidewalk. We did and found the sidewalk marked with he names of the 46 High Peaks and their elevations. Upper Wolf Jaw Mountain – 4,185 ft, Table Top – 4,427 ft, Nippletop Mountain – 4,620, Dix Mountain – 4,857 ft, nearby Whiteface Mountain – 4,867 ft. and and of course, Mount Marcy – 5,344 ft.

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