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On Friday night we took Erin & Andy fishing at the pond.  Eric caught 3 large mouth bass, Erin caught 3 large mouth bass and a 20 inch catfish and Andy got skunked.  Andy had a large fish on, but his line broke and he lost his whopper.

After fishing we were joined by Skip, Bonnie & Cindy for a cookout in the woods.   Below Bonnie loads up the wagon with soaking sweet corn.  Erin, Eric and Andy wonder how much water will slop out and Cindy brings more stuff.

We grilled hamburgers, salmonburgers, hot dogs and corn. Skip, Andy and Eric await the final grilling.

We sat around the fire and had a nice chat.  Ron & Jody joined us around 9:30pm.  Afterwards, Skip shot off bottle rockets for our grand finale.

Saturday morning Skip & I went in the Woodsman’s Field Days Canoe Race 3.2 miles upstream on the Black River Feeder Canal.

We were beaten in the C2 class by Paul Olney and his daughter Joanne and
Joe Siegel / Mark Olney.  Paul Olney set the ADK 90 Miler record in 2004 when Skip & I paddled the race.

Saturday night Kathryn and I went to Matthew Tryon’s wedding.  It was a nice ceremony.  Matt was joined by several members of his Civil War renactment troop, that added to the atmosphere.

Sunday Eric & I went in the BHA Hunter Show leadline classes.  Eric got a 2nd in the Equitation Class, out of 6 participants!  I credit Eric’s good posture, my draped lead line which enabled Eric to ’steer’ and the mare Onyx with all contributing to Eric’s win.  In the Leadline Suitability class, I believe the horse is judged as being ’suitable’.  Eric got 4th as the class order was nearly reversed as I believe the judge was just trying to even things out.  All the horses in the suitability class were quiet and well behaved.  Eric got a red ribbon and sticker book in the 1st class and a carrot and chocolate bar in the 2nd class.  Below Onyx enjoys her carrot, models the ribbons, and Eric is a happy boy.

This past Thursday, 8/14, was the playoffs and conclusion of our Adirondack Lanes Thursday night volleyball league.  We started on what seems a long time ago - back on 22 May.  Our main team included returning members Ron, Jim, Kathryn and Rob along with new members Brian and Julia.  Our subs included long time associates Josh, JoAnn, Becca  and Joe with new additions Dan, Scott A., Scott T., Stephanie and Rachael.

A common theme over the summer was our shifting line-up as we utilized 15 different players and the substitute team played in 31% of the games. While I greatly enjoyed playing with the large number of friends, it did have it’s challenges as we all worked to understand one another’s strengths and tendencies.

Some of the highlights were:

• The temporary return of Becca early on as she fulfilled a local nursing internship
• Rob’s injury in early July that sidelined him for the season
• Julia (or someone looking like Julia) showing up on the night of her birthday celebration
• The mid-season addition of Rachael, our ninja setter
• Scott T.’s “It’s on!” after taking a hard spike to the chest

We won 2/3rds of our games and went into the playoffs seated 4th in the 10 team league.

We got a 1st round bye and faced Matt Sudol’s team with a team of Jim, Kathryn, Julia, Rachael, Josh, Scott T. and Ron.  We missed serves, botched passes and did everything we could to hand the game over.  Down 10-6 we called time out, re-captured the serve and pulled a tie and finally pulled out a 15-13 win.  The 2nd game we jumped out to a 9-0 lead and coasted to 15-6 win.

In the semi-finals we faced #2 Parson’s team and again played poorly, giving the game to Parson.  Unfortunately our time out did not change our fortune and we limped to game 2 licking our wounds.  Game two was competitive, but our mistakes again caught up with us.  We lost 15-12 and bowed out of the playoffs.

Ron, Kathryn and I hung around and watched the finals (there were only 3 other spectators) and Swingers easily beat Parson’s in two straight games.

I want to thank everyone for being part of the 2008 Sand Fleas volleyball team.  I especially want to thank Josh, Joe, Dan, Becca, JoAnn, Scott T., Scott A. and Stephanie for helping out during the season. Thanks to Kathryn for acquiring and making T-shirts.

While I was disappointed in my individual performance and our team performance in the playoffs it is really about the journey – not the destination.  The journey was great.  I got to play decent volleyball with a bunch of great people.  We got better as a team as we went along.  I already look forward to Sand Fleas 2009.

I’ve gone winter camping with Jason several times, including our memorable dog sledding trip.  Jay was interested in canoe camping and last year when I met his fiancee, Beth, we talked about scheduling a canoe camping trip.  We scheduled 9-10 August for our trip and then anxiously watched the weather forecast fluctuate all over the place.  I was near to canceling the trip on Wednesday as the prediction for rain exceeded 70%.  I wasn’t looking forward to sitting under a rain tarp with a 5 year old for the weekend.

We called to confirm on Thursday night and the forecast had dropped to probable rain Friday night, but clearing to 20% rain during Saturday with rain likely coming in on Sunday afternoon.  We agreed to go ahead, meet early at Hoss’s General Store in Long Lake and try to get on the water at Little Tupper Lake early before winds became a problem on the shallow lake.

We had planned for company for dinner on Friday night and so began our packing early in the week.  Friday afternoon we loaded canoes and packed the car so Saturday morning we only had to add our sandwiches and food packs.  Kathryn & I arose at 5am and got Eric up a little before 6am and were on the road soon after.  We met Jason and Beth at 8:30 as planned.

We counted 28 cars in the parking lot at Little Tupper Lake and decided to return to the nearby empty Round Lake parking lot.

We dropped our canoes in the Little Tupper outlet which drains into Round Lake.  It was a pretty little stream lined with white lily pads.

Below Kathryn, Eric and Jim cruise down the outlet stream.

We found Round Lake devoid of other paddlers as we explored the eastern shore examining the potential campsites.  Several of the campsites are located at old hunting camps built by the Whitney’s.   Most sites are located back from the shore line and have P3 toilets.  We ended up staying at site #4 which was on a prominent point with several large white pine trees and copious blue berry bushes.  The only drawback to the site was lack of level tent sites.  We managed with our two tents, but more or larger tents would be a problem.

Eric, Kathryn and I went swimming while Jason and Beth basked in the sun.  Below the swimmers threaten a passing canoe.

We found a large rock that let us play King on the Mountain before we cooled enough to call an end to the swimming.

After our swim we took short nap and then a walk to scout the nearby campsites.  Beth demonstrates our voting technique:  Everyone that wants to take a hike put their hands on their hips!

As we prepared for the hike Jason noticed an interesting bug on his leg.

After our hike gathered firewood and baked biscuits using our Outback Oven.  We had afternoon tea and biscuits so we could delay dinner until later in the evening.

After our snack we swapped canoes and explored more of the lake so that Jason and Beth could test out the Wenonah Minnesota II. It was a beautiful evening for a paddle.

For dinner we had a vegetable tortellini salad and turkey chops grilled over the fire with marshmallows and s’mores for dessert.

We tried to stay up and look for meteorites, but Kathryn, Eric and I crashed about 10pm.  Beth and Jay stayed up until midnight buring wood, watching the fire and looking for meteorites.  They saw a total of 14 during their watch.

We slept great and heard loons through out the night.  In the morning we added fresh picked blueberries to our three berry muffin mix and then began our leisurely packing up to head out Sunday morning.

It was sprinkling lightly as we paddled out.  As we were loading up Ranger Coons stopped by to talk.  We told him where we stayed and talked a little bit about Round Lake.  He characterized Round Lake as without the winds of Little Tupper Lake and without the portage of Lake Lila.  I asked him about the illegal introduction of   largemouth bass into Little Tupper Lake.  He said they have spread through out the watershed and it doesn’t bode well for native trout.  I asked him about the navigability of Shingle Shanty Brook.  Ranger Coons referenced recent advice by Kenneth Hamm NYSDEC, Office of General Counsel  in the June issue of the NYS DEC Conservationist Magazine. He jokingly asked if we wanted to provide a test case.  We also talked about the portage trail connecting Round Lake to Low Lake/Hitchins Pond.  Another trip……

We stopped at Hoss’s for a milk shake on our way home and thought we had parted ways, however, we later saw Jason checking out canoes in Blue Mtn Lake.

Last fall we cleared a small area in the far corner of our 40 acre woodlot where we had a fire pit and a few cookouts.  Demonstrating the extreme creatively that we use in naming locations it became christened “Cookout Corner” (other examples: Edge Trail, Trillium Trail, Buck Rake Pass, White Birch Field, Hanging Bucket, North Trail, etc, etc, you get the point).

Recently I tore up concrete slab from our walk way that goes no where and transported them to Cookout Corner to make a safer fire pit.  Tuesday night Eric, Kathryn and I used local transportation and took our dinner for an inaugural meal.

Our new fire pit is huge and much safer.  Below Trey checks for food scraps.

We have a home made table that I plan to move over to the area and we need to work on some semi-permanent seating.  If I get creative I will try to craft something ‘Adirondack-ish’using the chainsaw and logs.

Friday I picked Skip up at 2pm and we drove to Piseco to put in on Fall Stream for an overnight camping trip.  I had heard there were issues with leaving cars overnight at the put in and so left my car at Piseco Airport located about .5 from the put in.  I know one person in Piseco, Tony Colby, and he drove by as I was walking back to the canoe.  Tony was accompanied by his two schnazer dogs and our chat was brief.

We were on the water at 3:30 and at Fall Lake 30 minutes later.  We had several rain showers as we paddled.  I donned my rain coat for the 1st hard down pour, but embraced the cooling showers thereafter. There was only one hard rain that caused us to pull under a hemlock tree for a little protection.

Above Fall Lake we encountered a few beaver dams that required exiting the canoe and lifting over. The photo below looks SW and depicts the relationship of Piseco Lake in the background, the airport on the right with Fall Lake in the foreground and Fall Stream draining towards Piseco Lake.

We arrived at Vly Lake at 5pm and surveyed the two campsites along the north side of Vly Mtn.  Both had a nice view of the lake, but were markedly different.  The eastern most campsite had a fireplace and two areas cleared and leveled to accommodate solo tents. Unfortunately, i had brought my Big Agnes Emerald Mtn 3 person trip on it’s maiden voyage and needed more space.

The western most campsite had been “improved”.  It had a  an old canvas chair, a gas barbeque grill sans the gas tank, two flag poles, a half buried 5 gallon bucket (clean and 1/3 full of water), and a lot of garbage.

The last residents had left a smoldering fire and left toilet flowers all over the woods.    They had cut a large spruce tree off at 4′ that was apparently obscuring their view and dropped it into the lake.  They dumped crackers on the ground, burned their cans in the fire and dumped beans on the ground.  We ended up taking 2 grocery bags of trash out with us on Saturday.

All this aside, Vly Lake was beautiful.  It was hot, hazy and still as the sun set and the bugs (mosquitos, deer flies and gnats) were swarming.  Skip went swimming while I cooked dinner: corn bread using my Outback Oven and Spanish Rice with tomatos, onions, peppers and  hamburger.  Dinner was one of my better meals.

While Skip washed dishes I went swimming and washed off the sweat, sun screen and bug dope.  Although it was a full moon and bright the overcast kept the moon from being seen by us.  We turned in at 10pm.

One nice feature of the Big Agnes Emerald Mtn 3is the amount of mesh on the tent.  We slept with the sides open and had a nice cross breeze through the night despite recurring light rain sprinkles.  During the night we heard a owl close overhead.

We awoke at 7.  Within minutes after arising we could hear rain coming across the adjoining woods and across the lake.  We packed the tent in a hurry and donned our rain coats.  10 minutes later the rain passed and we had coffee and breakfast.

At 8pm we paddled over to explore Mud Lake which was interesting, but didn’t offer any opportunities to exit a boat.

Our paddle out was uneventful.  We arrived back in Piseco in time for me to walk into the airport along with the finishers of the Piseco Triathalon.  Once loaded up Skip & I did a scouting trip on nearby Fawn Lake and returned home.