For those of you who were wondering why my blog was not changing at all, it’s because I have been in California for the past week and a few days. I have a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, on a little lake called Whitaker Lake. It is just an extremely peaceful place, and its origins are rooted in the grace of God, so the place is very special to our family.I spent the week+ with my entire family (Dad, Mom, Sarah, Jon, and Jennie) and Leslie. We had such a fun time, and did quite the variety of activities. Here is a highlight of some of the stuff we did:
- Mountain Climbing: the Adirondacks are, well, mountains. They are steep mountains, and fun mountains to climb. One of the reason they are so fun to climb is because of the fact that there is no altitude like the Rockies. They compare in vertical ascent and steepness, but you don’t have to worry about how high you are. Nonetheless, we started with Chimney Mountain, which is a relatively short, but very steep, climb to a set of rocks overlooking the mountains. The rocks on top of the mountain create really cool caves, and are fun to explore. I really like Chimney. The next day, Les and I did Pillsbury Mountain. The view from the top was certainly not worth the climb, which is more grueling than Chimney, and there is nothing to do on top of Pillsbury. Les and I give it a very low rating. But we finished on the last day with my favorite mountain: Snowy. It is by far the most challenging of the mountains we did, but also the most rewarding. It has a fire tower on the summit, so you can look out over the miles and miles of mountains and forests surrounding you. Gorgeous.
- Games: One of my favorite things about the cabin is playing games with the family when you are not doing active things. The game of this trip was Bags. Jon built a sweet set before we came out, so we spent a lot of time playing it. If you don’t know what it is, Google it. So we spent lots of time doing that. We also played Spoons, Scategories, Catch-Phrase, Yahtzee, Flinch, and others.
- Canoeing: When you are on a lake, you have to canoe. But there comes a problem when you don’t know how. Leslie didn’t (past tense) know how to canoe, but we spent a lot of time on the lake, and eventually she was getting it down. We learned the 7 basic strokes: the bow stroke, the backwater, the draw stroke, the push-away, the sweep, the reverse-sweep, and the J-stroke. With those 7 strokes, you can certainly navigate a canoe like a champ. I was quite proud of Leslie by the end of our trip.
- King of the Frosties: Absolutely no cabin trip is complete without King of the Frosties. King of the Frosties is a little ice cream place in the town about 6 miles from the cabin. The town is really really small, with a population not much over 100, maybe? But King of the Frosties makes the best ice cream ever, and the tradition twist with rainbow sprinkles is something to look forward to all year long.
- Deerfoot: Deerfoot Lodge is a Christian camp for boys on the lake. It has been a part of our family for years and years and years. My grandpa served on the Board of Directors, and my uncle does now. Two of my uncles went there when they were kids, and my brother, my cousins, and myself have had many many summers there. The guys who go there and work there love the Lord, and have had quite the impact on me, and are responsible for a lot of who I am today. If you want to know more about Deerfoot, check out their website.
There are lots of others things I could include on this list, but I would probably bore you after awhile. Bottom line is that I love the cabin, and getting to spend 8 days there with my family was quite the treat.