Thursday, June 25, 2009

A New Route Through The Adirondacks

I drove up to the farm again this past weekend but this time took a new route, following the highways through Lake George, Warrensburg, North Creek, Long Lake, Indian Lake, Blue Mountain Lake, Tupper Lake, Colton and Parishville. The roads were flatter, straighter and less traveled by the tourist crowd. But it was a longer, more time consuming route and, as I discovered, both gasoline and food shops are few and far between. Food shops/Delis, what few there are, seem to have developed a local custom of NOT listing what they sell or how much it costs. They seemed shocked and perhaps even offended that I should ask. Regional peculiarity, perhaps - or opportunity to tweak the tourists?

There were plenty of high peaks around, but fewer long range vistas than I'd become accustomed to on my previous route. The aroma of Balsam was so pervasive that I could smell it even in my car with the windows closed.

And there was water everywhere. Lakes, ponds, marshes, creeks, rivers, bogs, resevoirs, sometimes a new pond or marsh at every bend in the road.

If you click on the photo above to enlarge it, you'll see a canoe paddling near shore. It was quite a lovely scene and reminded me of my many canoe journeys through wilderness areas.

I stopped to let the dogs out at a trail head to Rock Pond. We had it all to ourselves so explored the woods a bit. In this photo Seamus, Fergus and Casey sniff the heavily Balsam perfumed air.

Above: At a bend in the road. I'd thought that this photo was taken through my windshield, but now that I look more carefully, I guess not. I would have had to be driving on the wrong side of the road.

The Hudson River in the far northern mountains where it originates. It's pure, clean and lovely here - hardly the same muddy monster which lumbers alongside the city of Albany.

And this butterfly was quite friendly as are most of its kind. I've had them land on my shoulder as I hiked. I've searched the internet and at first there seemed to be no local butterfly like it except the Black Swallowtail. This one is very much like a Black Swallowtail except for - er, no swallowtail. And the color patterns aren't exact, but I'd suppose there to be local variations. But upon further searching, I found it! It's a White Admiral. I hadn't previously looked at anything called "white" because - well, because it's mostly black.

I traveled on towards more rocky peaks. I took lots of pictures with my new camera, so this is only the beginning. I'll post more photos in days to come.

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