Cranberry Lake

Walt Whitman once proclaimed, "Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." 

I personally would like to proclaim that if you become one with nature, nature becomes one with you. However, after the past few days I'm starting to believe that no matter how much in touch with nature you are- you can still get shit on. 

My amazing in-laws decided to do a "quick" 2.5 day camping trip in the breathtakingly beautiful Adirondacks. If you're up for an adventure in NY, Cranberry Lake is your stop. My little one has never been camping and Bryan and I have never done anything this outdoorsy together since we've been married. This would be as good a time if any since I'm set to deploy to the Mediterranean at the end of this month.

THURSDAY SCHEDULE:

•Set up camp

•Dinner

•Sleep

Yay! A four hour drive and we've made it to Cranberry Lake. The Trees are starting to turn into their yellows and reds. The Lakes are crystal clear and this weather makes me wish I was sipping on a PSL right about now. Not to mention that I haven't smelt air this fresh in a very long time. 
We just got to camp and its a little after five. Mom and dad have been here for a bit, traveling with a toddler can never be a non-stop process.

Bry started setting up our 10 person tent that we borrowed from the siblings while our parents argued over what poles went through what tent hole. It was then that we discovered our poles were missing which meant "hotel" tent was a no go.  We put together a 3 person tent which really felt like a single person tent through the night.

It dropped to about 39 degrees and we had to get the fire started fast as we were racing against the remaining daylight; only to find out that the fire starters were about 15 years old and the wood we snuck into the park refused to burn.

After about 20 minutes I got the fire blazing. My husband claims he started it and I kept it going but that's an arguable point. Bags of chips held us over until the chili thawed out and let me tell ya, NOTHING beats a warm meal on a cold night next to the fire. By 830 we were in bed snuggled up close trying to ignore the fact that we were sleeping on a slant.

Around 2am we awoke from our slumber by screeching laughs and loud conversation from the hillbillies who camped next to us. All I could think of was yelling through a megaphone to shut the hell up, whereas my husband just wanted to go over and chop them in the throat. It was shortly after they had gone to bed that we had to pee. The bathroom facility was too far away and it was pitch black out. With my luck if I walked all the way over there I would have been mauled by a bear. Nature and I don't really coexist that well (which is weird because I love the outdoors) and for those of you who know me, can fully vouch of this. If anything crazy were to happen, it would happen to me so I took a pass. In that moment I was wishing I was a dude so I could just "whip it out." That was the second time Bryan's ever seen me pop a squat, the first time was at an Ultra Concert in Miami back in 2012 and we were chased by security guards for public urination.  How we ever got out of that situation ticket-less I will never know. Anyway, circumstances of both were completely different so I couldn't help but to laugh. 

《Did you know that with Grizzlies you are supposed to act limp and dead and they should leave you alone. Black Bears are the ones where you have to act "big" and make loud noises to scare them off. Unfortunately I didn't get to test this out but if you get the chance, let me know》

FRIDAYS SCHEDULE

•Breakfast at the only Diner in town 

•Pick pontoon up from boat rental place

•Boat to a mountain and hike to Sliding Rock 

•Boat to sandbar on a different mountain and grill

•Return to camp and do whatever

Its 630 and we slept like crap. That's what camping is all about though right? Leaving comfort back at home because lets be real, there's nothing luxurious about sleeping in bags on the ground.  With cricks throughout our bodies and exhaustion on our faces, all we could think about was slamming coffee down our throats and stat.

After breakfast we picked up the pontoon and were off to the mountain that had Sliding Rock (a rock that ran down with spring water that was slippery enough to allow you to slide down, pretty self explanatory). My husband grew up doing this so it only seemed right to relive and create new memories with our little one.  From the beginning of the trail, Sliding Rock should have realistically only been a mile and a half AT MOST. When we got to the fork, dad INSISTED that he remembered going straight. It's been at least 15 years since they've hiked these trails and mom laughed claiming there's no way he could have remembered going straight. We, excluding dads opinion, decided to go to the right where it listed a bunch of ponds and the collective mileage to each. A pond is a collection of water and that's at the bottom of the rock so it's gotta be one of those right? We hiked in about 3 miles to discover no rock and a sketchy pond that would be prone to large wild animals. Dad had been muttering under his breath the whole time that he didn't remember this and that we had gone the wrong way and well... we did.  So we allowed some gloating before turning back around towards the fork (where we should have gone straight). By this point Blake had done all the hiking her little legs could handle and up she climbed, I thanked her later for the workout. 

《Oh did I mention that Bry has a torn meniscus?! He would have been the bears first snack because we all would have outrun him but with mom not too far off. She forgot her tennis shoes at the house and her feet are so petite that none of our shoes would fit her. Especially mine with my Sasquatch feet so the entire trip she wore flip flops with black ninja socks》

Praise Jesus we made it to Sliding Rock. It was really neat and we were all pretty dead but very excited to have finally reached our destination. We climbed to the top of the rock, Blake and I were the first to get into our bathing suits. Well, I actually forgot hers back at home so she stripped down to her panties and T-shirt. The water was freezing but felt refreshing from our long hike. Blake was a little nervous to slide down because the pool of water at the bottom of the rock had the biggest crayfish we have ever seen. I ensured her, "you'll be okay, nothing will get you. C'mon it'll be fun!" *Cues Bryan to start recording We slid down the smaller rock first with the goal of sliding down the big rock last. Blake looked terrified but we got out and started our "hooray we did it" dance and then I noticed something... black wormlike things wiggling around all over us. It literally took me point five seconds to process that those worm things were leeches, meanwhile Blake was still on her Victory dance. I started screaming, she started bawling (even though she had no clue what she was crying about) and I started stripping us both down. Ugh! Leeches everywhere and mostly on me than on her. They were in my lady parts, on my arms, legs, and feet... just everywhere. Bryan tried to get me to calm down so that Blakely would calm down and the whole scenario was just a mess. I told you though, if anything bad were to happen it would be to me and nature sure stuck it to me that's for sure. Bryan opted out of sliding down his childhood rock (what a chicken) and we headed back to the trail that eventually led to the boat. We had little over an hour left to go to the sandbar to swim before the boat had to be returned. Crystal clear water for miles and clams galore. I think this was Blakely's favorite part of the trip. 

SATURDAY'S SCHEDULE

•Breakfast yet again at the only Diner in town

•Pack up camp

•Hike Bear Mountain

•Head back home before rain hits

Let's fast-forward the details of us waking from another terrible night of sleep and the 2 pots of coffee we single handedly killed at the Diner. Bryan and I set out to hike Bear Mountain which I swear was the baby version of Mount Kilimanjaro.  Steep upward climbs and steep downward climbs with twisted trails and lifted tree roots that kept us stumbling every so often. It was obviously worth it though, after all Bear Mountain and Sliding Rock were the main reasons why we decided to go camping in the first place. 

It took us an hour and forty-five minutes to hike 2.5 miles with multiple photo-sesh stops. It's officially marked off my bucket list and we found our new hobby. 

Both cars packed and ready to go, we were for sure beating the thunderstorm that was headed our way. We were meeting up with mom and dad at an ice cream shop outside the State Park so we drove out of the campsite first and waited for them to catch up. 

*text comes in from random number* 

"Bryan your father locked the keys in the car." Not only were the keys locked inside, but they were in the ignition. With new cars, you can't wiggle a coat hanger inside the window and press unlock. The car registers the keys in the ignition and treats it as if you were in the car. You can't do anything unless its from the Key-fob.

You ready for this... the ironic part of this unfortunate mishap is that my father-in-law is a locksmith and has his own personal company of unlocking cars, houses, and business when things like this happen. 

(A-ffordable Locksmith, Rochester New York)

There we were, standing in a state park out in the middle of no where (where no locksmith, other than my dad, was around to help) trying to figure out how to get the damn keys. Dad borrowed our car to drive to the front office to see if they would have anything that would help us out. As he was pulling away he went straight for these huge rocks and we all just stood there in awe. Luckily just a few fender scrapes, nothing I can't say I haven't done personally (as I have run over multiple medians and sidewalks) A little after two hours had passed and with the help of some friendly campers, Bryan finally hooked the keys from the ignition from the passenger side and pulled them between the door frame. You should have seen all the material they tried using and making. Between all the thick sticks, wires, coat hangers, s'more sticks, and duck tape it's amazing we couldn't get the keys out sooner. I wish I had a running poll of life & nature versus us during that camping trip.  We were definitely losing.

                            《It started raining like 15 minutes after getting the car unlocked》

We were so happy to be back home 4 hours later and we were so looking forward to doing laundry and showering for the first time since Thursday morning. We slept great obviously in our nice warm beds and awoke to resume life as normal. Brew Coffee, Drink Coffee, Eat Breakfast, Run Errands, Catch up on all the TV we so willingly let go for a few days as we touched base with our wild side and became one with Nature. 

Thanks for the great send off gift mom and dad. It was most rewarding.