Lake Placid in the Fall

    Upper New York State is beautiful in autumn as the sunshine turns on nature’s neon with a vibrant display of fall colour. We had been there three times before; once on our honeymoon in 1977, once with friends in 1983 and once with the boys in 1985.

      We selected a small motel on Mirror Lake, often mistaken for Lake Placid, to stay for a couple of days. There was nothing unusual about the motel but it was right on the lake and as guests we had full access to their canoes and paddleboats. This was going to result in hours of fun for us, immersed in the resplendent chromaticity.

      I was no stranger to canoeing having taken many trips in the past, but it was a new experience for Gavin and Adam. They loved the water and were thrilled to be able to paddle, although it was a bit of a stretch for Adam to reach the water from high above it sitting in the bow with me in the stern. Mirror Lake is aptly named. Its surface was like glass and the clear blue sky and brilliant autumn colours were reflected endlessly on the water. The icing on the cake was the silence broken only by our paddles slicing into the calm waters and the occasional exclamation of delight from the boys.                                              

      It is true that all good things must come to an end and when it happened to our vacations it left in its wake something very close to depression. I grovelled in it for a while then had to force myself back to reality and the knowledge that there would be other vacations and they would probably be even better as Gavin and Adam grew up and were able to do more things with us. So waffling between depression and elation (there’s a psychological disorder there isn’t there?) we left Lake Placid with a scenic drive along Highway 3. We descended out of the mountains and followed the winding road through picturesque forests and Norman Rockwell-type villages. It was about a three hour drive but it was so pretty we wished it had been longer.

      In a last ditch effort to make our time together as long and as meaningful as possible we stopped at the roadside for a picnic lunch. There were no sand dunes so the boys had to be content with climbing the rocks and jumping to the soft grass below - how fitting that this vacation should end with the boys doing what they learned to love in Cape Cod.

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