We Found a New Playground!

When Brian and I lived in the west, Southern Utah was our playground. There's so much to do there, and it's breathtakingly beautiful. Seriously, if you haven't been, go. Just amazing. Moving back to NY though creates a huge gap (called the great plains) between us and our favorite playground.

Now don't get me wrong, there is so much to do in the Finger Lakes area. The lakes, gorges, creeks, etc. afford tons of good water stuff to do, and there is tons of wonderful hiking. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about getting away from civilization...going somewhere you can get lost. It's seriously impossible to get lost in upstate NY. Walk 1 hour and you'll reach at least 10 houses even in the remotest area.

The Adirondacks, however, are another story. It's the largest park in America. It covers a huge chunk of Upstate, and it's all pine-laden low-lying mountains. For some extremely strange reason unknown to us, neither Brian nor I ever went to the Adirondacks growing up. So, itching for an adventure, we decided to gives the Adirondacks a try...

Do you see the Grinch-like pine trees in this last picture! All of the pines looked like that. It was fantastic.

The snow came up to Atticus' back, so he had to dive to make each step. He had a blast, and we were all exhausted by the end of the first day.

In the winter, cabin rentals are tons cheaper, so we rented a little heated (yeah!) cabin so that our clothes could dry overnight.

Everything was just draped in snow and icicles. It was so breathtaking up there.

One thing we have especially missed about the west is boulders. Central NY is all shale and slate, which is beautiful, and we obviously love it since we live here, but we have missed large boulders and slabs of rock. When we entered the ADKs, we began to see boulders, so we're excited to give bouldering a try there this summer!

We tried a new kind of trail food:

It's a tortilla (and I got the soft kind so they wouldn't be tough when they got cold) with peanut butter and nutella on it, rolled up. Amazing. My new favorite trail food. It gave me the energy I needed, but wasn't super sugary or tough. You could do so many combinations with this as well: pb and honey, pb and jelly; maple syrup and pb, we're even thinking of making a pizza-type one...the possibilities are endless here.

Such a wonderful trip! It rejuvenated me the way I hoped it would. We'll definitely be back soon!