Ice Cutting. Dog Sledding. A Full Day In The Mountains!

After a long day with my dear dad up at St. Elizabeth's hospital in Utica nervously waiting while a new pace maker was inserted. After my gig on a snowy winter night at the Georgetown Inn, which turned out rather well considering how bad the roads were.
I was pleased with the turn out and touched by those who traveled these back winter roads for dinner and a little bit of folk music! Leigh Yardley and her niece and nephew and husband Bruce. Patty and John Grossman. Fast Edward Vollmer and Rich Grant. Tommy and Peg Hoe. Last but not least Jim Kitchen of the Mountain Top Golf course and his girlfriend Amy Jeffery.
I played a good two hour set of music and mixed in a bunch of originals I haven't done in a while.
I brought one of my beautiful cast iron, wooded seated stools and several of my mom's hooked rugs for show and tell.
The evening ended up out at the bar doing a couple tunes with Tommy and Eddie. It was a musical moment! I just love these two characters! We've been dear friends for many many years now.
Saturday morning dawned in blue and sunny. Bill and I loaded up our snow shoe gear, camera's and water bottles and headed north to catch the Dog Sled Races.
I've never been to a dog sled race and know little about the rules and what nots but let me tell you! These were some excited dogs! It was a perfect day. I counted at least 15-20 dog trucks! I was under the impression only husky dogs ran in these races like up in Alaska. Wrong! There were gray hounds and other short haired breeds all tethered to sleek wooden sleds just barking and shivering with excitement at the promise of a race!
We then went to the Hard Times Cafe for lunch. I didn't get to sit at my usual table where there is a book shelf over head and a copy of Woodswoman II. This book is out of print and the only one of that series that I don't have so every time I have a meal at the Hard Times, I try to land that table to pick up where I left off reading that book. The Hard Times was PACKED with snowmobilers. The whole Adirondack Park was packed with snowmobilers! The mountains sounded like a freaking bee hive swarming with so many of these machines! I know the locals count on the tourism of all these people coming up from PA and NJ the cities. It was so loud! Everywhere you went! Out on the lake cutting ice or snowshoeing. Nothing but noise. It made me sad.
It must of been golden and spiritual to have been able to live in the mountains back in the days before motor boats and snowmobiles, freight trains and cars. Sometimes, even more than the visual beauty of the mountains. I yearn for the quiet. The birds and trees, wind, water and leaves and a peaceful yoga like trance float in my kayak.
After a cold beer and a chef salad. We headed north again and ended up on my favorite lake of my childhood. Raquatte. There we watched a bunch of locals cutting the ice like they did in the old days, but with a gasoline powered engine conveyor belt to a truck that hauled the heavy blocks of ice by truck up to the ice house. The blocks of ice were two toned with the top layer thick with grayish blue compacted slush and snow. The bottom of the block was pure, clear diamond like ice!
I was glad to see this operation but again bothered by the constant buzz of the snowmobilers as they sped around the lake in their thousand dollar suits and even more than that machines. Hey they were having fun! Just not my scene.
So we left Raquette and back to Inlet we went to get at least and hour of snow shoeing in! The trail we took was in a busy family oriented place called Fern Park. There are cross-country skiing, snow shoe trails. An ice skating rink and a sledding hill. The trail we took actually joined the trails with which the dogs were racing! So we got to see the dogs running behind the scenes and not only on the start and finish line. Pretty Cool!
The night ended with a wonderful dinner with my dear old lady friend Ann Cochran and her husband John at The Woods Inn. The Woods Inn is one of my favorite old Inn's in the Adirondacks restored with antiques from the era of the great old camps. I've played several times in the cozy tin tiled ceiling bar downstairs and have had many memorable dinners there with friends and family.
The night ended with the most amazing fireworks! It was my loudest mountain day ever and late getting home.
Today I rest. Oh wait nope...I've got to hit a grocery store at some point.

Bill and I finally got away for a long overdue visit to Kelly and Steve's new home.
They bought a sweet little red brick home about a mile from where they used to live in Arlington. I'm so happy for her as she now has a lot more room to raise her family. I believe Kelly said she now proudly owns .7th of an acre which is landscaped to the hilt with sand cherries, magnolias, rhododendrons, ornamental grasses an other various plant materials all under a magnificent old oak tree and surrounded by a solid wooden fence.
Little Graeme and Ian have a spacious sunny play room off the dining room and each have their own bedrooms upstairs.
The real treat was the finished basement with a king sized bed room, living room and a shower that would make the roman bath look miniscule! Well maybe not. This blue tiled shower could easily fit ten people an has shower heads placed in every different angle so not one part of your body is missed with spraying water! AAAHHH! It was so relaxing but really a little over the top. I felt greedy using so much water!
Saturday we packed the kids up an loaded up the caravan for the 10 minute trip down to DC's Botanical Gardens!
Ten Minutes! I'm so lucky to have a step daughter who only lives ten minutes from so many wonderful historical places!
I look forward to many more visits!
Inside the Botanical Gardens was pure bliss escaping this long, cold, gray New York winter. Walking around in 80 degrees in the steamy vegetation reading the little plant material label signs and breathing in the different aroma's and color was just what I needed. I could of easily spent the entire afternoon there but the kids were getting restless and we also wanted to tour the Native American Museum. Wow! That museum one could easily spend a month reading a learning about all the different tribes and how they surived. The Native Americans Indian are truly wonderful and amazing people tied so close to mother earth,
We had lunch in the cafeteria downstairs which was a gourmet treat in itself. There had to be 10 different stations with dishes prepared the way the Indian's would of cooked them over open fires. One station the chef grilled salmon over an open wood fire! I loved just sitting there munching on my smoked trout sandwich and watching this man cook over the open flames.
In the "cheap" gift shop I bought a Dream Catcher for over my bed and a set of hand woven coasters for my coffee table beside my couch! I say the cheap gift shop as there were two to shop in. The ground level Art gift shop had many fine fine works of art in pottery, paintings, jewelry, textiles and other stuff but way over priced for my purse! I'm happy with my dreamcatcher!
Saturday night Kelly got a babysitter. Twenty dollars and hour! Jeeze I used to get fifty cents and hour up on ole Foote Hill Road babysitting all the neighbor hood kids back in the day and thought I was making some good money! When I found out Kelly is paying twenty I almost had them turn the car around! I would of babysat the kids for ten and come home with some money! Honestly! The money they pay for day care down there is HUGE! I"m thinking with the grand suite down stair and the Roman shower. I could easily be a personally nanny and make a truck load of money!
With babysitter in place, the four of us headed out for another ten minute car ride to downtown Arlington. I love Arlington!
There is so much happening! Music, Shopping, Museums and the Capitol all there! And no skyscrapers which always made me feel a closed in a like in New York City. We had a wonderful dinner at a joint that specializes only in steak. It was fabulous!
I had a filet mignon with a mushroom brandy creme sauce. Little cast iron skillets of buttery garlic mashed potatoes and creamed spinach were place on every corner of the table. Kelly and i shared a bottle of a nice California red wine while the guys had a beer. After dinner we walked to the Iota Club and listened to a jazz infused rock-ragae band's sound check.
Loud! The evening ended at a more quiet bar called Spider Kelly where we talked about houses, jobs and kids!
It was a great night out to see what city people do. I really live a very sheltered life. Thank God for the Barge Canal Coffee house. It's where I am right now as I write this with a pot of cardamon cinnamon tea.

Sparkle Day

It was one day this week. I can't remember which. I had to go to town for something early one morning. I think it was Monday to get Nick's financial aide straightened out. Mother Nature was in her finest winter dress! While all the trees and shrub's were sleeping and last years perennial carcasses sticking out of the February's snow. She came along an threw a sparkly, silver-white shined veil over everything! My camera did these shots no justice. It was breathtaking.

Beauty On A Bleak February Day!

On my way over to Richie Rich's to re-record my vocals to "A Good Horse." I was lucky to have my camera with me and to get a shot of these comical characters! Just priceless!