I now have a photograph to go with the title of my blog "Road to nowhere...". The photograph is not actually of a road and it does go somewhere, but life's not so straightforward and I have found the hidden meaning of that snap. Whatever that meaning might be. I will be updating my profile with it soon. Or at least post it with this one.
Moving on to the trip that led me to the aforementioned monumental event. I have always been a fan of travelling. And this blog initiated as more of a travelogue than anything else. The photograph seems to have brought me back to my basics. So be it. The preparations for this trip had started way back in the beginning of time when the earth had crawled out as a tiny piece of rock from the primordial soup and my beloved wife was smart enough to figure out then that it would lead to this damn fine trip. The name of the destination is true to its ancient origins. Lake Placid. Funny though we ended up nowhere close to it. We stayed on The Mirror Lake . Whitewater Rafted on The Indian lake. Had breakfast on Saranac Lake. Clicked the 1 millionth snap of the trip on Cascade Lake. Run over some ducks on Tupper Lake. Drove right into the-lake-that-had-no-name. Okie so the last couple of things are obviously not true. And no we didn't click just 1 million snaps, the number was actually close to a billion gazillion. But you get the drift. There's no lake placid in the entire story.
And I just realised that I have killed my entire blog in a genius stroke of sentence construction. I'll play dumb though and pretend I never wrote that ,continuing with my story in chronological order. It was a labor day weekend and it was our holiday, we being bonded labors my wife and myself. So we just thought of going crazy. Started on Saturday morning drove through minor traffic jams while leaving Jersey and entering NY state and listening to all sorts of non-sensible and at times fine music we reached the destination in good time. The last 30 miles were particularly scenic with lakes and mountains and gorgeous valleys and trees with just a hint of yellow to keep us company. First on the agenda was this 20 minute flight in one of those single propeller planes. Our camera died on us so I don't have a snap to show the entire plane. But I have caught a few glimpses of the wings and the views from the plane as proof. It was a bright yellow colored cute little thing, swaying and holding its own in the brisk winds of Adirondack valley. We had a birds eye view of the North and South Lake Placid, the tear drop shaped origin of the Hudson river and the two highest mountains of the region among the other things. Here's the
website for anyone interested.
Scenic flight....check.
Found a decent Italian place right across our hotel. I am maintaining my distance with fowl, so I opted for the pasta with shrimp. The next few minutes were just slurps and burps with both my wife and myself forgetting existence of the other and just hogging. It was the only meal of our day. Tanks full, we took a leisurely stroll on the banks of the Mirror Lake. It was a little chilly and we had caught the glimpse of the indoor heated pool and jacuzzi in the Hotel while checking in. Ever the Desis to utilise the facilities offered to the fullest we quickly headed to the artificially heated pool. Nature be damned its payback time for the hotel for charging us exorbitant amounts of money.
Swimming Pool and Jacuzzi...check.
Sunday started early and was worth all the effort. The views from the hotel patio were breathtaking. Fog hanging over the picturesque Mirror lake and the baby orange of the sun's first rays illuminating it was fascinating. Drove almost 2 hours to reach Indian Lake. The drive is meant to be done on a motorcycle with its curving roads of highs and lows. I so missed my ThunderBird. In fact there was a Harley Convention scheduled for Monday in Lake Placid so there were bikes a-plenty of all sizes , shapes and color with their ever the dude riders. We crossed so many different lakes on our way with view after view of serene beauty that there was no point keeping track of the names. Next up was a hunt for the White water Rafting gig. I being ever the lazy bum had skipped the reservations hoping that we being the erstwhile Queen and King of the Kingdom of Lazistan would be treated to a royal welcome and club class seats to the raft. Welcome it surely was with No Vacancy signs hanging all around. I quickly tapped into my reserve of good luck and evil mixed together and stole the berths of not 2 but 3 unsuspecting desis whose only crime was to follow IST(Indian Standard Time) and arriving an hour late. My wife allayed my fears of eternal damnation by rightly pointing that we have already sinned enough to be dispatched to hell and back 3 times over and this act of pure evil would only prove to be a confirmation of our tickets to the same. Speaking of hell, my wife again raised an interesting point. The all mighty sentries at the gates must sure have changed their requirements to enter the cozier part of after life namely heaven because if not with the exponential rise of sins committed these days, heaven must be a really empty place. Damn Sure it must be. And now I would like to officially put a disclaimer on the views expressed on the existence of heaven, hell , afterlife so an so forth as views expressed solely by my wife and the blog and author thereof holding no responsibility for the same. So we made the cut and were on board a rattling bus to this launching point for rafts armed with life jackets and big blue and yellow pedals. There was quiet a bee line of rafts to enter the water before us.
The White Water Rafting part was quiet a roller coaster ride. Scary and apprehensive to begin with, exhilarating and immense fun there on and dragging in the end. I was donning the lead position in the raft and it was like an (Inter)National Integration convention in the boat. A couple from Canada, a family of 4 originally from Romania settled in Maryland , the instructor and navigator a local and my wife and myself the desis temporarily settled in Jersey. All of us were just settling in the raft when to every ones surprise the Romanian girl decided to take a dip in the water and made a lunge for it. No she wasn't suicidal. Life saved 1, scared like hell - priceless. Quiet a lot of good rapids followed and thankfully there were no more lunges in the water from anyone else. Also swam in the slower parts of the river and jumped into the water from the top of a rock good 15ft above water. They called it the bubble beater, everyone else called it the whirlpool of drowning. It was one monster of a rapid just pulling everyone under and pounding them hard. We did a good 4-5 rotations under the swirling water before escaping unharmed with the loss of just a pedal. The water gradually died down and we were almost stagnant for a good part of a couple of hours. This was the dragging part of the whole thing. To top it off were the lifeless jokes of our navigator. But better sense prevailed, everyone jumped in to share their own sense of humor and we finished the expedition on a very happy note and great bonding. The navigator was very good at what she was supposed to do but a tad sad with the sense of humor part. No ones perfect after all.
White Water Rafting.....Sore bum and aching body but check definitely.
Came back, opted for yet another pasta, more slurping, lesser talking, only meal of the day again. Slept like there was no tomorrow. There were no specific plans for Monday and we had to check out by 11 in the morning. Did some lazy walks around the Winter Olympic Centre of Lake Placid, clicked a few more snaps, did some long-sought-after-faded-black-jeans shopping from the gap Outlet in the vicinity and headed for Sarnac Lake for our breakfast. It was on the way back from Sarnac Lake that the monumental photograph was clicked on a rarely used railway line heading into nowhere and coming from nowhere.
Fought through crazy traffic on our way back into Jersey to finish of what we had started. And finally my dearest wife candidly said that she kinda had fun this time around. Thanku thanku dear lady, finally you liked something that I planned.
Fine trip ....check , check and check!!
PS : A few snaps to follow. I just couldn't resist the urge to post at least a couple of the gazillion ones that I have been talking about all along.
