As some of you might know I took a four day trip with friends to Lake Placid, NY and I just got back. This was one fo the most fun trips I have taken in a while. Lake Placid is an awesome location with great Ski trails (They held the winter there in 1932 and 1980). I have been there earlier and loved it so we decided to take another trip there.
There were 10 of us on this trip: Me, Vinit, Surabhi, Pranav, Aarti, Sarang, Sandeep, Pradeep, Amit and Anu. All of us except Amit and Anu left from Newark, NJ (We had to leave the cars in the NJIT parking deck) at 4:30 am (so that we could miss all the traffic) in two cars. It was me, Sandeep, Pradeep and Sarang in one car and Surabhi, Vinit, Aarti and Pranav in the second car. The drive up there is beautiful and we were there in Lake Placid by 9:15 am. The cabin was really nice, it was located right next to the Ausable River and was really beautiful. Below is a pic of the cabin from the front.
Front View of the cabin we stayed at
We basically lazed around during the day. The cabin had a fireplace so we relaxed in front of it; played Uno, Vollyball and Climbed trees (That was just me) and slept (Some of us hadn’t slept the entire night before).
Enjoying the Fireplace
At night we had a bonfire and we fried Paneer (Cottage Cheese) and onions at the bonfire and had them. They tasted amazing. It was freezing outside and till we got the fire going it was literally a pain to stay outside inspite of all the jackets and gloves. But once we got the fire going the temperature became a lot more bearable. We were outside for a couple of hours atleast. The best part was that the bonfire area was near the river so if everyone stopped talking we could hear the river flowing and nothing else. There was absolute silence in the area. The night sky has never looked so awesome before.
Once the food was done we came back in and started talking about various horror movies we had seen, basically to scare Aarti, Vinit and Surabhi. We talked for a couple of hours and just as we were about to goto sleep Amit and Anu arrived and we talked for another hour before finally going to sleep.
The next day was also very relaxed and we all woke up by 9:30 am. While we were getting dressed Anu made tea for everyone (I had a soda as I don’t drink tea) and we had breakfast. After breakfast we went outside for a couple of hours of cricket.
Having Breakfast
Playing Cricket (The big beach ball in the pic is the wicket)
Then once everyone was tired we left for Lake Placid and on the way we stopped by the AuSable river which had frozen (Not completely but just the top inch or inch and half) to toss stones and ice across it. It was a lot of fun. The really interesting part was that when we tossed a particularly large stone or ice piece we would get a cool echo.
Tossing Stones in the Ausable River
After playing at the river for about an hour we drove around to the Lake Placid proper, visited the Olympic stadium and had dinner at this Italian place. After dinner we went back to the cabin and watched a couple of movies. Actually I just watched half of the first one when I got bored and left to read a book. After the first movie we decided to make another bonfire and roasted/grilled corn on it along with Yams. The corn tasted awesome but the Yams were ok. I think we shouldn’t have let them catch fire. That probably ruined the flavor. 😉 Aarti, Surabhi and Sandeep stayed inside while we were out by the bonfire. After eating we put out the fire and went back in and spent the next few hours just talking. We talked about everything from politics to cars to college life. We finally went to sleep at 4 am and that too because we were planning to go ice skating and had to get up for that.
Having dinner at an Italian Restaurant
We were originally planning on going skiing but since it hadn’t snowed yet none of the beginner trails were open yet and only the intermediate trails were open. So we went ice-skating. That also was a lot of fun. The rink was only open for 2 hours but we enjoyed ourselves a lot. After skating we went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant where the food was pretty good and the service was amazing.
Group Photo at the Skating Rink
Having lunch at a Mexican Restaurant
After dinner we came back to the cabin as we had a few hours to kill before we went to the Stars on Ice show and just relaxed. I didn’t goto the show as my head was killing me but everyone else except Sarang went and really enjoyed the show. I basically finished my book and then went to sleep. Got up the next day feeling a lot better and had breakfast. Then after lazing around for a few hours while everyone got dressed we reluctantly left for home.
Group Photo taken outside the cabin
I was in Amit’s car with him and Anu and the drive back was non eventful, we did hit a lot of traffic at first but since we had a GPS and my black berry we choose an alternative route and managed to avoid most of the traffic.
Over all the trip was a lot of fun and I took a lot of photos (About 500+) so it will take me some time to sort through them and select pics to put in the photo gallery. However I have put up a zip file containing all the Lake Placid photos up on the web, you can download it from here.
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
This is the cabin we stayed at: Our Cabin
Update (5th Dec 2006): Posted the pics from the trip in the Photogallery
– Suramya