the blue muse

{august break no. 31}

On Day Two of our camping trip, my daughter and I took a hike up one of the nearby trails. This was the scene from where we started, Indian Lake, which over the years, has become a place to come back to.

When my son was quite young I brought him here, and we went on a canoe ride. (Thinking this would be great fun for him.) He screamed all the way to the end of the lake, until, after much exasperation and trying everything I could think of to calm him down, I said, “What exactly is it you’re so afraid of?” He replied, “I’m afraid to fall in.”

My answer was that he was wearing a life jacket, so even if he fell in, he would float. Problem solved. Silly me. (And I must also add that in addition to the life jacket, he did know how to swim at that point, apparently I just hadn’t explained it all well enough.) After that, he settled down and enjoyed the ride.

My husband and I came to this lake to celebrate out first anniversary. And we’ve come here as a family almost every October since.

But on this trip, we were camping, tent camping, at an adjacent lake, and we were having a lovely, relaxing time, all of us looking forward to four whole days of fresh air, being unplugged, lots of exercise and reading and golfing and of course, s’mores.

You would never know it by looking at this photo that our trip was about to be cut short by a girl named Irene. Just shortly after my daughter and I returned from our hike, the Camp Ranger came by and told us that the park was being evacuated due to Hurricane Irene. What? Just look at that beautiful blue sky…surely it won’t reach all the way up here…

And so, the next day, we left as instructed, and as it turned out, the storm that was by then downgraded from hurricane to tropical actually did go right through the Adirondacks.

We headed down to my daughter’s place in Albany, and it was crazy there, heavy rain, wind and flooding all around us. We were lucky, we never lost power, though we had all our camping gear with us so we felt prepared in case it happened.

We all spent the day eating and reading and playing cards, much as we would have if we were still in the mountains.

In that regard, it was a wonderful trip, a vacation that became a bit of an adventure, and even though it took us two extra hours to get home because of all the detours caused by flooding, I left feeling grateful and rested.

It was a strong reminder that Mother Nature is always in charge.

And that truly, there’s no place like home.

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Keeping those who were affected by Irene in my thoughts and heart.