Adirondack Adventure

For his winter vacation, our son announced he wanted to go skiing.  Not water-skiing, downhill skiing.  My DH and I looked at each other and wondered where this mutant being came from.  Our family usually spends the winter break someplace where you can bask in the warm sunshine on a white beach and paddle through turquoise blue waters with brightly colored fish for company.  Downhill skiing involves SNOW which involves COLD which we have plenty of in New Jersey in February.

However, being the agreeable parents we are, we booked a hotel in Lake Placid, New York, in the heart of the beautiful, SNOWY Adirondacks.  Amazingly enough, we had a great time.  I don’t do downhill skiing.  Been there, done that, have a bad knee to prove it.  However, I managed to find lots of other fun things to do in the COLD.

Here I am skating on the 400-meter oval where Eric Heiden won his 5 gold speed-skating medals in 1980.  It’s a loooong way around this track!

Here I am with my DH snow-shoeing through the alpine forest of the Adirondacks.  That’s a workout!

I also went cross-country skiing but didn’t manage to bring my camera for that.  I even talked DH into trying it; he’s REALLY not into cold weather.  But he said he’d try it again.  What a trooper!

My last activity was something I’ve always, always wanted to do: ride in a dog sled across a frozen lake.  Mush!

I wasn’t allowed to “drive” but riding was a blast.  DH and I were tucked snugly under a blanket as we flew across the ice.

This is how I survived all my unaccustomed activities:

Our hotel’s fabulous hot tub.  It bubbled away all my muscle aches and pains before I even knew I had them.  There’s something very decadent about sitting submerged up to your chin in warm, frothy water while snow swirls by the window outside.

Ahhhhhh!

Fun fact: This gorgeous region is actually named after an insult.  Evidently the Iroquois disliked the Algonquin tribes who lived here and called them by the derogatory name Adirondack which means literally “bark-eaters.”  Who knew?

Another reason I love hockey players

When Sports Illustrated asked Bryan Little of the Atlanta Thrashers to name his favorite super-model, he responded, “I don’t really like tall skinny girls.”

Music to the ears of a short, curvy woman!

A Nod from Nancy: The Hearts of Horses

Ann Patchett wrote something in The Wall Street Journal which resonated with me.  She said people walk into a bookstore and “feel utterly lost in the face of all those titles, and so they walk out empty-handed.”  She combats this problem by recommending books she likes to anyone who listens.  I’ve decided to do the same.

I can’t promise a review of the books I recommend since that takes a lot of time and thought.  However, when I read a book I like–of any genre–I will tell you what it is and try to pique your interest in some way.  Since I’m a big fan of alliteration I’ve decided to title my picks “A Nod from Nancy”.  Catchy, eh?

Here’s my first “nod”:

The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss

I like horses but plenty of folks I know who aren’t particularly taken the the four-legged beasts have enjoyed this novel.  It’s set in Oregon in 1917.  The main character is a young woman who travels around various ranches and farms, gentling their horses.  She’s a cross between a bronco-buster and a horse-whisperer.  The story is about people though, as she gets drawn into the lives of the horses’ owners.  There’s love, death, and plenty of other drama, yet the book has a wonderfully calm rhythm which reminded me of riding a horse.

If anyone else has read this book, I’d love to hear what you thought.

The Unseen Hand

It’s a term my favorite hockey announcer Doc Emrick uses to explain the invisible force that seems to help you in weird ways.   This is my "unseen hand" story:

Brodie frolicking with his buddy Trace

 Yesterday I had to drive Brodie the Devil Dog to Rover Ranch and Spa.   (Rover Ranch is a giant playroom for dogs where Brodie can get his ya-yas out by running around and bothering all the other dogs.)  I loaded Brodie into the back of my SUV, turned on the ignition and saw the dreaded "tire pressure warning" light (which looks nothing like a tire so I always have to look it up in the manual to see what it means).  I got back out of the car and discovered that my tire wasn’t just low, it was dead flat.   This ticked me off because I had just had the car serviced the day before, and it seemed a little too coincidental that it would go flat overnight unless the car dealer had an "unseen hand" in it.

So I unloaded Brodie and reloaded him in my daughter’s car which providentially she had left home from college for the winter.  As I was driving west along Bloomfield Avenue, I saw policemen setting up red cones.  I continued along my way, dropped the dog, and came back.  Approaching the red cones, I discovered the police were checking everyone’s car inspection stickers.  I glanced at my daughter’s, saw with relief that it was current, and was waved through the checkpoint without incident.

When I got home, just out curiosity, I check MY car’s inspection sticker.  Guess what?  It expired in March of 2008.  Whew!  The unseen hand had saved me. 

Note: it cost me $42.00 to have a local repair shop blow my tire back up, and  it was indeed the car dealer’s fault that it had gone flat.  However, I’m not complaining this time because they saved me a ticket.