Cruising The Lake

I'm really behind with blogging this trip and it's already Tuesday night. But I want to go back to Saturday when we took a cruise on Lake George because it was really interesting to see the lake. Lake George is in New York State at the southeast base of the Adirondack Mountains. It flows north into Lake Champlain and then into the St. Lawrence River and ultimately to the Atlantic. It's about 32 miles long and the boat cruises for about 14 miles up and back and takes about 2 hours. We also had lunch on board. Very peaceful and relaxing. Our boat was the Lac du Saint Sacrement, the largest of the 3 boats that cruise the lake. There was a sailboat regatta going on. . .see the white dots in the distance.



At the point where the boat turns to come back down the lake is a beautiful hotel sitting out on a spit of land. It is the historic Sagamore Hotel which we've decided we're coming back and staying in--maybe next year. Very elegant.



On the way back to the pier, I played a little with my camera. Here are some shots.







All in all, a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Hildene

Since we couldn't find a President's house in Manchester, we had to settle for the son of a President's house instead. We went to Hildene, the summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. It is a gracious, liveable house with beautiful proportions. Interestingly enough, they allowed photography inside the house unlike most historical sites, so I have some pictures below.

This is the formal dining room;

I loved the wallpaper mural on the wall

and the beautiful silver service on the buffet.

The central staircase was exceptionally lovely.

The ballisters are arranged in sets of four; each one of the four is a different design.

Another nice thing about this house was the light. Many of the historical houses we've been to are so dark. Blinds are down, drapes are closed, or there is some kind of light-reduction film on the windows to preserve the furniture and carpeting. It sometimes makes for a somewhat dreary tour. This house was light and bright; windows and doors open and sunlight flooding in.

In this bedroom upstairs everything was pink and flowery. The long windows looked out onto the rose garden which must have been a delightful view. Unfortunately for us, they had a large tent erected for a wedding that was going to be held there, so we were deprived of that particular vision, but it was easy to imagine how wonderful it would have been to wake up in that room and gaze out at the gardens.

This shot is looking back towards the house. See how the second floor windows are obscured by the tent. Lucky bride though, to have her wedding at such a beautiful spot.

This little saying was hanging over the headboard. It says:

My Wish For Thee

May every good and perfect gift

That cometh from above

Be thine from Him who varies not

The God of light and love.

A fitting sentiment for a light and lovely room.

The Schumacher wallpaper and fabric is a faithful reproduction of the original and was donated by Schumacher when the room was redone several years ago.

The gardens and views were spectacular.

I could spend my summer vacation here.

Four Days In The Country

We spent last week in Manchester, Vermont. Foggy mornings, chilly nights, crispy days. Not quite leaf peeper time yet, but lovely just the same. One morning we took a ride to the top of Equinox Mountain, a trip I could probably have done without. There were several hairpin turns on the way up, but the ride down was so steep that Bill had to keep the brakes on practically the whole time. We even stopped half way down to let them cool off. Pretty, though.

Somewhere along the way we stopped to look at an old marble quarry. The Manchester area has a lot of marble. Probably if you went out in your backyard and started digging, you would find marble. Many of the sidewalks here are made of marble, they just have so much of it. This quarry in Dorset dates from 1785 and calls itself the oldest quarry in the U.S. It has been abandoned for over 100 years, but it is a little eerie and interesting to photograph. I like the way the old cut blocks of marble reflect in the pool.

The signs of fall are all over and my favorite holiday decorations are out. The Equinox Garden Center had a great display. Very creative.

Pretty fall color wherever you look.

More to come from Vermont.

Timmmberrrr

I've been dreading this week.



Our hemlock in the back of the house had to come down.

I resisted it with all my being, but I did not prevail. It was too close to the house and swaying into the gutter and roofline with just about every breeze.

We consulted with several arborists to see if it could be cabled or pulled away from the roof somehow, but they all said no. Let me tell you I loved that tree. It provided wonderful afternoon shade to the little deck where we always sit and gave me a handy place to feed my critters even when the weather's bad, not to mention it was always a pleasure to sit and watch the birds and squirrels run and play in its branches. But it had to go.

So the crew arrived bright and early and proceded to cut down my tree.

They reminded me of evil gremlins who climbed out the chimney to steal my tree.

I watched as they hacked off limb after limb and then ground them up horribly in their big woodchipper. Oh, it was painful. Slowly, the climber man inched his way up, up to the sky until he reached the very top and then--No!--it was all gone.

Now it feels naked out there and way too hot and sunny in the afternoon.

It didn't take the critters long to adapt though.

Goodbye old friend. Thanks for the memories.

Heeere's Hanna

After toying with us all day with periods of light rain and no wind, Hanna seems to have arrived now around dinner time. The rain is pelting down in force and the trees are swaying pretty hard. The news just predicted a tornado warning for a few surrounding counties, but not ours, thank goodness. One they did mention was Beverly in New Jersey which is where Chris lives. He is not there, however. He's on the beach at Sea Isle. Great.

I called him last night to suggest he wait until tomorrow, but no, he had to "get outa Dodge." Nut. We've watched some pretty severe storms from that window on the ocean and they were scary. I'm just praying now that he and Shannon and the puppies and whoever else is with them will be all right.

Irresistible Running Mates

You have to be a Battlestar Galactica fan to appreciate this, but I am and I do.
And it's just perfect.

Treehouse Day

Tyler Arboretum is having a treehouse exhibit this summer, and we rode over the other day to see it. Nothing as elaborate as the Longwood treehouses, but imaginative and clever just the same. Like Longwood's, these treehouses do no structural damage to the trees themselves.

Signs throughout the exhibit which winds all over the arboretum tell how trees enrich our lives by providing food, shelter, beauty and inspiration to people.

One of my favorites was "Nesting," built from about 8,000 wooden dowels and thousands of plastic zip ties that look like giant nests hanging in the tree limbs. Look closely to see the large blue nest hanging behind the orange nest.

Birds do this on a smaller scale all the time. They gather twigs, pine needles and feathers and then weave them all together to make their nests. You obviously cannot go up into this, any more than you would disturb a real nest in the trees.

Another one I liked a lot was "Hanging Out." In this one, you are invited to lounge in the hammocks inside a grove of trees and just daydream.

The "Cape May Bluebird House" was cute. It was built to resemble a little Victorian Cape May house and kids were running in and out of this one. They had several real nesting boxes around this but, with the amount of traffic and general busyness at the site, I don't imagine they got many feathered takers.

I was also taken with "The Bell House" where they had cowbells attached to cords up in the branches that you could pull on to make music. When people weren't ringing the bells, the wind would do it.


At one spot on the trail, they provided something like a duck blind where you stood on a platform and looked through a slit cut into the front which directed your gaze to this. . . a magnificent tree.


The large meadow in the center of the arboretum was lovely this time of year with all the mature grasses and wildflowers.

This is just a small sample of all the treehouses on view, too many for one post.

It was a good day and a good walk and lots of fun to see.