Day Two

Day 2
July 7, 2010
8:18AM
On the Banks of the Hudson
Waterford, NY
Oldest incorporated village in New York State. 1794.

I got up early at 7AM, took a walk around the small park that bolsters the bridge crossed the Hudson/ Champlain lock. Took some photos and walked around the historic district to stretch my legs and orient myself. I am beat. I took some photos that I will file away for now.

Getting ready for coffee, more of this waking up business and my sister who shall arrive around 11:30.

Judy arrived at 11:40 and off we went up to Lake Luzerne via Lake George, and Hadley,, Wound our way passed the family camp and Aunt Hazels hold camp where Judy and I took a slew of photos of a place where we grew up. I was a young boy when we moved away but Judy and Holly (other sister) spent a lot of time up there. My mother and father purchased land in 1953 on the North Shore Road on The Great Sacandaga. They moved away in 1973 and sold the camp with 250ft of lake front beach and several acres up the mountain in the Adirondack Park. All of us kids including my parents several years after selling the camp had a hankering for the cold deep clear fresh water that we love.

After we stuck a foot in the reservoir, we traveled up the Stony Creek road passed the farmhouse where we lived for five years. Now the house is dilapidated and of course, one must take photos of the old homestead.

After wandering around a bit there we headed on up to Stony Creek and then on up to Harrisburg lake which is the dead end of Stony Creek Road. What a very cool place to revisit. Our family would go there for picnics and fishing for years when my sisters and I were growing up. Pretty.. Remote and lovely.

Then we traveled back down Stony Creek road following some road equipment down the mountain roads until we found Allen town and went to attempt to visit some old friends of the family.
More about Allen town later. Safe to say that this is an Appalachian community exposed to the outside world when Sacandaga River was flooded to make the hydroelectric dam in the 1932. That is a story in and of itself.

Finally, we made it to my sister’s old friend who has a cottage on Efner Lake in the Adirondack Park. An afternoon of swimming in the clear water of a very nice sized kettle lake. Wonderful cottage with the traditional Adirondack Style porch from which I am not writing this blog tonight. The world has been set right again. Clear water, nice evening breeze temperatures in the mid 70’s and the promise of rain in the air. Sleeping will be scrumptious. Tomorrow kayaking on the lake with my sister. Can’t wait.