Indian Lake
Indian Lake.
Mike,
Kelvin, Dave and I headed up to see Mark an old troop 327 chum, who was back
home from his base in Texas. Mark and his parents Mario & Barbara (one of
the best leaders troop 327 has ever had.) moved up to what was basically the
middle of nowhere, about eight years ago. Kelvin had been up here before, but
Mike and I had not. Not wanting to partake in any manual labor David J, got
dropped off outside of Albany to visit 'Tilly Lace'.
To back track a bit we had all piled into the purple people eater, and headed north. We were all joking and having a good time; I know I was thinking (and regretting) why didn't we take road trips before. At our first stop, we ate overly sweet Cinnabun. The rest stop was really small, and had no Pepsi products. Dave found one of those sticker machines, while mike was putting air on his tires. The three of us piled in under the heading 'best friends'. In under a minute, we had 16 mini stickers that would soon grace the inside of Mike's car. Mike will always know that the fat guy, the tall guy and the black guy are his best friends.
Mike climbing a big ass rock
So many hours later we got up to The Yedlowski's house. The country up here was so beautiful. It was all snow covered. Wow. It was magnificent, but I couldn't imagine how shitty it was for Mark to come up here for high school. Mark showed us around 'down town Indian lake' then we grabbed some burgers, at the bear trap inn. They were good. Mark showed us his grandparent’s property, and we did some hiking. Mark showed, us where he wants to build an Ewok village. When we got back the van was really stuck.
Mark (pictured as an ass) and Kelvin work on getting us unstuck
There was some local ordinance that forced us to keep Kelvin tied up like this
We
hung out at Mark’s Parents house for a few hours and enjoyed a roaring fire.
Mark had lit said fire with one of those long butane lighters that people use
for pilot lights and barbeques etc. We sat down to play Lord of the Rings
Trivial Pursuit, it was either that or Star Wars Trivia. Personally I would have
preferred Star Wars, because I have seen all those movies. Anyway the game was
fun, I knew more than I thought about LOTR. And all of a sudden what sounded
like a gunshot erupts in the house. And a huge plastic chunk flies across the
board. It turned out to be the
lighter. We found the rest the burnt lighter several hours later in the complete
opposite direction. That shook us all up a little. Mark later almost burnt the
carpet by flicking matches at the fireplace.
After
dinner we went out to see the stars. Holy fuck. Being so far up a mountain, and
so far away form any cities. The sky was so clear. Imagine a navy blue sheet,
with top grade diamonds strewn all over it. That’s what it looked like. The
constellations we can see here in New York, were all filled in with other stars
and nebulas. It made you really think how small we actually are.
As the warmth of the fire and lethargy dug in, Mark took us back to the Apartment we were staying in. And as he left, maybe it was the fresh air, maybe it was being away from the fire, and Mike, Kelvin, Matt and I got a second wind. We spent a few hours bull shitting and watching TV, before calling it a night.
Troop
327Junior Leaders and Committee Chairman circa 1991 ... The 12 year reunion
Barbara
took us out for breakfast the next morning. The food was good; the service was
ok, but terribly slow. I don’t want to imagine what the bathrooms looked like.
After breakfast we packed up the wagon and headed back to Mark’s to put
in a few hours of work before heading home. We added some lights around the
outside of the house, and cleared the driveway a little. It will be covered
again, when it snows next, but for today at least Barb has a "clearish"
driveway. So after warming up inside, we said goodbye and headed to Albany to
get Dave.
Dave
for his entire time in Albany talked about a restaurant called “Bombers”, a
really cool place where they sold 1 pound burritos. So when we call Dave we tell
him, we want to stop there. And despite having eaten Indian, Dave was all for
it. Bombers, is right around the corner from Dave’ last two apartments in
Albany. The place reeks of trying too hard, but also not trying at all. The food
was great, but so filling. My stomach was so much fuller than the tortilla that
held my BBQ Chicken Burrito with Guacamole.
So
in the dark cold night we took off. After much release of the free radicals, we
got home. I think we all had a good good time. Probably the only one not having
a good time was the guy whose car was completely engulfed in flames on the Saw
Mill Parkway.