ADIRONDACKS -- 2009 June 27 – July 4

We arrived at the “tree house” just in time to see the most important person of the week – Rosie the Golden retriever. I think John and Linda were there also. After greeting everyone, John put me right to work figuring out how to mount a rotisserie in a way that would allow us to cook our pig. On the surface this seemed like a good idea, but it meant we would be left unsupervised for three days with access to tools. This could not end well!!
Within a few minutes Fox and Debbie arrived with Michelle, Rack and Karen in the back seat. That evening was the traditional Pasta, meatball and sausage dinner. As usual it was outstanding. Dessert was the best tasting chocolate cake I ever ate. This was concocted in the test kitchens of Linda Bucci.
Bright and early Sunday Rack, Rosie, John and I set off to conquer Bear Mountain. Normally this would be an easy trek with only one wet spot. The past week’s rain made this trip like the movie, “The African Queen”. Along the way I must have walked through an Adirondack Black Fly Convention.
After watching a beautiful view of the top side of a cloud, we (Rack) decided to take a short cut down the blue trail. Apparently blue means mountain goat, but we lived and rewarded ourselves with breakfast in Inlet and then picked up the party boat. I had to pose as John Bucci and pretend to understand and actually care about a bunch of safety info, then sign my name Ed Corcoran , which didn’t phase the guy giving the directions.
We spent a lovely day and cooked hamburgers and hotdogs outside that night. Sadly, John, Linda and Rosie left us for a three day work session at home.
On Monday, Rack and I walked into Inlet. Along the way we noticed that many camps had really neat, descriptive signs identifying them, and poor John did not. As a group we spent all our spare time trying to fix this shortcoming.
Fox picked us up so Rack could get back to make a Frittata breakfast for us. Great job! We appointed Fox house President and gave him a gigantic amount of money to feed us. Later we drove into Old Forge and searched for material to construct a “nice” sign for John. God we are thoughtful!!
That evening we boarded the SS Minnow for a short cruise to Daker’s for dinner. The presence of Guinness on tap testified to the high culinary standing of this establishment. Ignore the 9 thousand steps leading up to the deck and the two beer drinking dogs in the corner. As the sun sunk in the Lake, we traveled home with Captain Michelle at the helm. We finished the evening torturing marshmallows and debating the ethics of pre-forming smores in aluminum foil or creating them on the fly.
Tuesday saw us all walk into Inlet for breakfast and clams. Then on to Eagle Bay to buy groceries with that gigantic wad of money. We also bought sure fired lottery winners. ( They turned out to be blanks!!) The rest of the day was spent creating signs. At night we had our first clam and speidie cook out.

Our finished signs! The Restaurant would not loan us a toilet seat, so we had to buy one!!

Wednesday was Rack’s Birthday. We started the festivities with an English Muffin, ham, egg and cheese combo that was great. Following was a coordinated attack on the Bald Mountain Fire Tower. Early on Debbie took a head wound and retreated to the staging area, where she became an official greeter. While most of us were concerned about not falling off the mountain, Kay had the added burden of not getting her good sneakers muddy.
The celebration continued when Rack and Michelle went swimming. Not a very noteworthy event except they were the only two humans in the four lake area who thought it was a good day for a dip. We spent the afternoon at the Red Dog, testing every appetizer on the menu. The vision of Kay sucking down a chicken wing will remain with me forever.
After three days of “work” john and Linda were happy to join in the party. We continued the evening with a spectacular boat ride down the lake and a sprint up the lake to beat—you guessed it- a rainstorm.
After receiving numerous very expensive gifts, Rack concluded his Day with homemade Peach Pie and ice cream.

We called Doug and Nancy and had a toast to Rack’s son John, who left us far too early eight years ago.

Thursday was our annual walk into Old Forge. Rack and I met everyone else at Walt’s for breakfast, then headed back to camp just in front of the rain. Doug and Nancy arrived around noon. Nancy had lost her Sister- in- law last week and we did not think they could join us. It was good to see them and I hope being there did a little to ease their loss.
The group split up with Fox, Doug, Rack and Shelly (note the name change) heading into someplace to buy $120 worth of lottery tickets.
(“ See, if we all put in twenty bucks apiece we are SURE to get a part of that $113,000,000- just common sense!”) They also got more clams.
John and I did the hard work and got a roaring fire going. Since it had rained for forty days, that was harder than it seemed. But we did it. By the time people returned we were ready to cook – The PIG. ( a whole pig ran into several minor problems – like where do you find a consenting pig and once you have him, where exactly do you store him until ready to cook.) We settled for a large pork something or other. Whatever it was it did not cooperate with the spit idea. We tinkered, fooled and played for about three hours. Rosie seemed very concerned and did her best to help out. In the end it was spectacular tasting as were the clams and everything else.
Some of the group headed into Inlet to introduce Linda to Panda Paws, something we came to regret. It is sad to see an addiction take hold. We all called Flake and Andy. Flake could not join us because of job conflicts. Andy sounded pretty ill with the flu, but it was nice to hear from them.
On Friday, Kay, Debbie, Karen, Linda and Shelly went to Wild Things Nature Museum. The rest of us enjoyed steady rain outside by playing cards inside. At noon, we drove to Racquet Lake for soup and sandwiches.
Once we all reunited, we made one last clam run, put some things away, dropped the boat off and settled in for “left over night” which meant in addition to the clams, any leftover food had to be consumed. This included dessert. It was a hard task, but we were up to the challenge .
Doug and Nancy left at 7, the rest of us visited until the wee hour of 11.
Saturday morning was packing, saying good bye, dodging the steady downpour and being on the road by 9:30. One final note. Like any good Government program, we managed to convert $120 into $6. But don’t worry- we reinvested it in the next Lottery drawing.