She is Susannah and him, Nick
After 20 great years, on a whim/trick
They flew across the pond
To the land of hurlers fond
And began a new journey in Limerick

Technically, it’s been 20.7 years, but COVID… Anyway, we couldn’t let our anniversary milestone pass by without a celebration. Susannah’s conference provided a location and date, so here we are in Ireland gearing up for a little adventure!

We suppose we should explain the title. Apparently, “yurt” is a Limerick phrase that roughly translates to “right on”. (Credit to the friendly bartender at the Treaty City Brewery for the translation.) And it feels an apt term for this vacation.

We found Limerick in a state of sporting frenzy. As we learned from our airport taxi driver, the local hurling team (yes, you read that correctly) is taking on rival Kilkenny team as part of the All Ireland Hurling Final. What is hurling? We don’t know either, but we’ll let you know as soon as we figure it out! The locals seem so fervent, we’re a bit embarrassed to ask.

Sporting aside, Limerick is a bit sleepy on Sunday morning (read: nothing seems to open before noon) but that gave us an opportunity to wander the streets and riverside to gain our bearings and absorb a dose of anti-jetlag sunshine. The city abounds with planters overflowing with colorful and varied blooms – somebody clearly cares a lot about flowers and it shows!

We had planned to eat lunch at the Milk Market (which today functions as a collection of food and craft stalls on weekends). It turned out neither of us was hungry but we were treated instead to an outdoor concert from a woman singing French songs, such as La Vie en Rose. (Fun trivia: for historical reasons, the Irish-French connection is strong in Limerick and the city celebrates Bastille Day with a two-day festival on the most convenient weekend thereto.)

We spent a lazy afternoon exploring the streets of Limerick, ending with a several-hour and surprisingly rich visit to King John’s castle, the historical seat of English power in the city. The exhibits featured opportunities to “meet” historical figures via life size video of character actors in period costume. And of course, we got to explore the fortifications themselves, from the sappers’ tunnels to the highest parapet.

In the evening we split ways: Nick to the locally legendary Chicken Hut for takeaway, and Susannah to the opening dinner and award ceremony for the conference (award included!)

Update on hurling… The city erupted in celebration in the late afternoon with locals taking to the streets in force sporting the vibrant green of the Limerick champions (3rd year in a row). Turns out, hurling is a pretty exciting sport to watch. We caught the first half hour of the match on TV, and concluded that it’s a zany combo of lacrosse, football, baseball, tennis, and soccer. As the TV announcer said, “there is no game like it in the world!” You just have to catch a game sometime for yourself. 🙂

On the way out of town, we made a quick stop at Cascade Lakes, which capture both the lakes and mountains in one beautiful package.

We came home the longer, scenic way through Vermont, including the ferry across Lake Champlain! We timed it perfectly, driving on to the ferry just before it pulled out of the dock.

The day was mostly driving, but we did have a lunch stop at The Old Brick Store in Charlotte, a short jaunt around Middlebury College so Rowan could get a sense of the campus, and a small detour to a covered bridge.

Back home now to the realities of life – but well refreshed from our adventures in the Adirondacks!

The Adirondacks are known for their High Peaks, 46 of which are over 4000 feet. So we couldn’t leave the area without summiting at least one of them. The plan for the day was to hike Cascade Mountain, at 4098 feet one of the smaller peaks on the list and reputedly also one of the easiest. At the trailhead we signed in on the trail register, which can be found at the start of all marked hikes. We weren’t expecting anything to go wrong, but always good to be safe!

On the way up, Susannah got several compliments on her new shirt (“Will hike for beer”), which was a spur of the moment birthday present from Nick. We stopped for lunch on a ledge with a splendid view of the Great Range.

It wasn’t too far from there to the summit, which includes a long stretch along a bare granite ledge.

The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) is working hard to restore vegetation above the tree line. The rare alpine tundra habitat was once badly eroded by hikers but has been making a comeback. As part of the effort, ADK posts “mountain stewards” on top of many of the popular peaks to answer questions and tell hikers about markers like cairns and scree walls that delineate the hikeable areas. The steward we met helpfully pointed out many of the peaks visible in the spectacular 360 degree view from the summit.

We weren’t the only ones who found this place special: while resting before the hike down, we couldn’t help overhearing the marriage proposal of a nearby couple. (She said yes!) We did our best to give them their space but were happy to oblige when they asked if we could take their picture.

We had intended to summit Cascade and just head back down again, but upon finding ourselves ahead of schedule, we realized we had time to summit nearby Porter Mountain via a branch trail partway down. This gave us several more expansive views, including one back to the summit of Cascade, and also allowed us to add a second 4000 footer to our day’s tally.

Perhaps inspired by Susannah’s shirt, we stopped for dinner at Big Slide Brewery, which had been closed on our earlier attempted visit. They had great beer, excellent entrees, and mouthwatering desserts. All that, plus dogs in the outdoor seating area and fun swag for sale with the Big Slide logo, made for a perfect ending to a memorable day.

Somebody had a birthday today – hint: she started it with an early morning walk into town to get muffins and scones from the Bluesberry Bakery for the family. So yummy!!

Although downtown Lake Placid mostly hugs the shores of Mirror Lake, its eponymous water body is much larger and not far away. You can take a boat tour from the local marina, so that’s what we did. Our guide provided lots of colorful commentary on the many wealthy landowners and their lakeside “camps” – think 20,000+ square foot dwellings with multi-bay boathouses, and most see use only a few weeks per year. The natural beauty was also very much in evidence despite the haze blanketing the region. (The locals are always at pains to point out that the haze has come in from western Canadian wildfires and is not the typical Adirondack air.)

Speaking of locals, they are something of an endangered species these days as rich out-of-towners price everyone else out of the market, and much of the housing that remains has been converted to tourist lodging. The end result is that the year-round population has dwindled to fewer than 1500 people and none of the local businesses can hire enough help.

Having explored Lake Placid by boat, we returned to downtown for a picnic lunch by the shores of Mirror Lake. We chose sandwiches from a place offering 46 different options, each named for one of the Adirondack high peaks (>4000 feet in elevation). Turns out the variety outweighed the quality but we still had an enjoyable meal.

The big adventure of the day was at “Experience Outdoors”, an outfit that specializes in zip lining, high ropes adventure courses, and other outdoor tours. As our readers will know, we’ve done ziplining and “via ferrata” as a family but have never tried a formal high ropes course together so Susannah’s birthday provided a perfect occasion. And the one we chose proved to be great opportunity because, according to our guide, we were some of the first to use it – the course had just opened the week before. (He also shared with us that the construction costs approached $1M – hopefully they’ll attract plenty of customers to recoup that investment.) Our route included many interesting and challenging elements, such as the “light bulb” traverse shown in the picture below. The overall difficulty level was quite high and the planners had incorporated an inventive carabiner system that minimized the amount of clipping and unclipping needed between elements. We emerged two hours later, very sore but very satisfied!

Having had such a delightful dinner on Monday, we returned to Lisa G’s, for another meal by the waterfall. To be sure they would not run out, we preordered dessert this time – and Susannah’s arrived with a candle. A most memorable birthday indeed!

We ventured a bit farther afield today, to the village of Tupper Lake (which is not actually on Tupper Lake – more on that later). Our main destination was the Wild Center – think top quality science museum focused on ecology and nature with something for everyone. The main hall featured some impressive exhibits, including a set of very playful otters, a 15-foot tall model glacier wall, and a well-sealed plexiglass box containing swarming beetles that were actively consuming animal carcasses. The outside grounds were woven with nature paths around a scenic pond (where Ben even spotted a shy young deer), and an ethereal forest walk interwoven with steel sculptures and music from speakers tucked throughout the trees. And everyone enjoyed the “Wild Walk” tree-top structure that had an super-sized spider web and human-scale bird’s nest above the tree line.

Known for its high peaks, the Adirondacks region also sports an immense collection of water bodies. There seems to be a convention we don’t quite understand that guides the assignment of lake-based names to villages and towns. For example, the village of Lake Placid abuts Mirror Lake, the village of Saranac Lake is on the shores of Lake Flower, and the village of Tupper Lake is alongside Raquette Pond – go figure!

Names aside, for the afternoon we decided to take to the water. Given that lakes and rivers abound in the Adirondacks, paddling is a commonplace activity in the area. The region just south of Tupper Lake holds a complicated mix of low islands, waterways, and marshes. In our rented canoes we explored an oxbow and the open waters of Simon Pond. At the beginning, our canoe speeds were somewhat mismatched but after a carefully choreographed mid-water personnel exchange, we managed to even things out.

We forgot to mention yesterday’s hike of the day, which came early in the morning and was actually half trail run, up Cobble Hill, near Lake Placid. The highlight was a long slab climb near the top, complete with a convenient rope option along the steepest part. Today’s installment was an easy ramble up Coney Mountain. This hike was recommended by a friendly staff member at the Adirondack Mountain Club store for its accessibility and 360 degree views at the top. We’re happy to report that it did not disappoint!

If you’ve heard of Lake Placid, it’s probably in the context of the Olympics, held here in both 1932 and 1980. Our theme for today was to visit the most striking of the Olympic venues: the ski jump and the bobsled run.

It’s hard to convey in pictures just how tall the ski jump towers are. The two little bumps in the photo above are respectively 90m and 120m atop a huge run-out hill (currently being reconstructed, and scheduled to be done this fall in time for the Olympic qualifiers in Dec). To get a better sense of scale, below is a photo of us at the bottom of the 120m tower, after taking a gondola up to the base. From there, the elevator ascends another 26 stories to the observation deck.

You’d think that upon reaching the top, the first thing we’d do would be to take in the view down the jump. Instead, we got waylaid by an informative and quite lengthy video that introduced us to the history of Lake Placid and how it came to host the Olympics. Did you know that one of the pivotal figures was Melvin Dewey, the same man responsible for the eponymous library catalog system? And we found out that we are staying in the modern successor to the popular resort that he established. We did finally take in the view down the ski jump (photo above), which cemented our respect for anyone brave enough to take on this high-flying sport!

We paused from our Olympic touring to have a gold-medal (and Olympic-sized!) lunch at the Pickled Pig. Chocolate bacon skewers – need we say more? This restaurant was a change from our original lunch choice for the day, which turned out to be closed on Wednesdays. We’ve actually had a frustrating string of bad luck hitting the closed days of various restaurants – which seem to vary by place, but inevitably the day we try them. We were glad to get to “The Pig” having missed it on Monday.

Full of bacon, some of us headed to the Olympic sliding center to explore the combined track for bobsled, luge, and skeleton. The speed that racers hit in these events isn’t always obvious on TV, but in person it was clear from the near-vertical bank on the turns and the fact that the run-out at the end of the race goes halfway back up the mountain. We ourselves hiked up far enough to get a view of the many switchbacks snaking their way down the slope.

We closed out the day with a non-Olympic cultural event – an adapted version of the musical “Working”, presented as part of the inaugural Open Sky Festival in Lake Placid. It was a relaxing day to end a busy day.

The village of Saranac Lake lies not far from Lake Placid but has a completely different feel and a different history. Starting in the late nineteenth century it became a focal point for the treatment of tuberculosis in the U.S. One of the foremost research laboratories on the disease was built here, and large numbers of TB sufferers came to live in the area where they underwent treatment with the “fresh air cure”. Curing included spending most daylight hours exposed to the fresh air in all types of weather, and changes in temperature were considered especially beneficial. Although the treatment regime was developed years before the TB pathogen was discovered, many of the patients did improve while “curing” and often they settled permanently in the area.

We visited the museum now housed in the former research lab, where we learned about experiences of patients and the vibrant arts community supported by the many creative people who came to the area as a result of their TB. The museum has a cure porch on wheels that they bring to local schools, but one can see similar porches on many houses throughout the village.

None of us currently needed to be cured from TB, but we did plan to spend most of the day outside regardless. This included an al fresco lunch on the shores of Lake Flower followed by a hike up Mt. Baker to take in more views of the high peaks.

Getting started on the hike was a bit of a gauntlet because the parking is limited, the local police ticket anyone who is even touching the road asphalt, and the strip of land between said road and adjacent Moody Lake is barely wider than a car! But we got our cars parked successfully without dunking them and set off through the wild raspberry bushes and up the mountain.

On the way home from the hike, half our group stopped for ice cream at Donnelly’s (thanks for the tip, Andy!) and the other half picked up wine and beer, which, combined with our takeout Thai food, made for a well-rounded meal. In the evening, a few of us headed into Lake Placid for a concert on Mirror Lake – fresh air and music to boot!

The visitor center in Lake Placid greets tourists with a mountain of “magical snow” (conveniently farmed from the local ice rink Zamboni). The two main rinks in town are currently under construction (come back in 2023 when the $100M project is done!) but there is still public skating every day at the one remaining open rink in town – we may have to check it out later this week…

Our main outing of the day was focused on the summer pleasures of hiking in the Adirondacks. Because this is a multigenerational trip, we chose Mt. Jo, a supposedly friendly hike with big views — only to discover that it was quite a bit steeper, rockier, and slipperier than expected. Only a few parts were easily traversed with clear footing, and (we found out later) according to the info center at the base, the conditions of the day were “wet and muddy” – indeed! But the views surpassed the guide book description (the glorious weather didn’t hurt), providing breathtaking views of many surrounding high peaks and Heart Lake below. What a great way to experience Adirondack beauty.

Returning from hiking, we took to Main Street in Lake Placid to experience the bustle and shopping on a sunny day. The setting alongside Mirror Lake is so striking, and the stores and parks are well situated to provide views for all comers. We continued the water theme at dinner ourselves, eating al fresco at “Lisa G’s” with a waterfall and fountain as backdrop – a delightful way to end a scenic day.

It’s been two years since we traveled somewhere new for a family vacation and it feels good to get out and explore again! This summer’s destination is Lake Placid, chosen for its scenery, range of outdoor activities, and location within driving distance. Somehow, our hockey travels never took us up here in the winter, so we thought we’d check it out in the summer – and during Olympic season, for an added twist!

Today was mostly a travel day, though we fit in a few scenic detours for good measure. The North Chatham train station is adorable (thanks for the detour, Google!), the Main Street in Lake George has lots of merch shops but no gas station, and Saratoga Springs is worth a stop for gelato and a water bottle refill from the city fountains. Note to the wise: the mineral levels in the water vary depending on the source so choose carefully or you’ll end up with sulfur-flavored bottles!

Despite the clouds and rain for the last half of our journey, we could tell that the surroundings were stunning, with high peaks and lakes around every turn. And it turns out that the view from our lodging is in fact as good as claimed in the pictures online – and the location is indeed easy walking distance to downtown.

Lake Placid itself is a bustling village – between the tourists and the lacrosse tournament families here this week, one has to be savvy about dinner reservations, or risk waiting several hours for a table! While we waited for ours to be ready, we explored the downtown a little, making notes of places to return to on subsequent days. Every once in a while between the Main St shops we caught a glimpse of Mirror Lake, and from the park by the public bandshell, we could see the view in its entirety.

Dinner was worth the wait: lakeside dining, brewpub food, excellent stout, and cornhole under the tent. (Kids beat parents 17-6 but the soggy bean bags didn’t slide so it was a different game – really!)

Venturing beyond Sydney for her final day, Susannah signed up for a one-day tour with Colourful Tours to the Blue Mountains. Early in the morning, she joined a group of 16 other (much younger) tourists from around the world and a lively, humorous guide for the 2-hour coach trip inland.

First stop along the way was the Featherlight Wildlife Preserve, which featured many native Australian animals, some of whom wandered freely about the park. Birds were the most plentiful – the award for the bird of the day is a three-way tie between the Aussie blue penguins, the garishly-adorned cassowary and the newly hatched emu chicks. But the marsupials really captured Susannah’s heart – how often does one get to see wallabies, wombats, koalas, and kangaroos up close and personal? Definitely a highlight of the day!!

Our next (and primary) destination was the Blue Mountains, an expansive National Park with mountain cliffs and deep canyons plunging down into the rainforest. The leaves from the prevalent eucalyptus trees emit oil vapors in the sun’s heat, creating a blue tinge in the air and giving the Blue Mountains their name. The biggest attraction at the Blue Mountains is the rock formation called the Three Sisters. In addition to multiple viewing platforms from different vantage points, an oft-skipped side trail takes visitors down a steep stair-filled path direct to the first “sister” herself – and of course, Susannah couldn’t miss that!

While the vast majority of tours travel next to Scenic World so their tour groups can ride one of several popular rides (gondola, inclined rail, cable car), our tour thankfully opted to explore the rain forest by foot. The Blue Mountains National Park is riddled with well-marked hiking trails (known locally as “walking tracks”), most of which go under the rainforest canopy, offering a different perspective on the park. On our trek, we saw the Katoomba Falls, had a mini-lecture about Aboriginal people in our impromptu cave classroom, heard one rendition of the story* behind the Three Sisters, and caught the face embedded in the Witches Leap waterfall.

* The chief, who had magical powers, temporarily turned his mischievous daughters to stone to protect them during war with a neighboring clan, but then died in the battle and they could never be turned back.

To celebrate our last night in Sydney, we decided to splurge on a show at the Sydney Opera House. Susannah had seen, and been inspired by, the West Side Story set on her Opera House tour, so we bought tickets to see the show! We had limited time between the end of Nick’s conference and the start of the show, but luckily Hannah’s Hot Pies was open and serving up delicious options. In true Aussie (British?) style, Nick even got his topped with mushy peas.

The auditorium was quite full and buzzing with energy when we arrived. We treated ourselves to wine at the “interval”, which one can conveniently purchase in advance, and we explored the internal and external views from the various lobby areas too.

Oh, and the show? It was very high energy and really well done. We were both familiar with the show but not in full live production – and it did not disappoint. The choreography was especially impressive, as were the sets, which took full advantage of the verticality of the space with 3-story fire escapes on movable platforms.

All in all, a very rewarding experience and a great way to end our trip. Plus, we had a final ferry ride back to our Airbnb to take in the lights of the city and our favorite structures. Thanks, Sydney, for an amazing trip!!