Vacation, 2020 Style | Part 3, The Objectionable Trophy

Congratulations! It's a ... Jagged Mineral Pain Ball

I expected to endure several more bouts of significant pain before the kidney stone episode was over. Although I woke up at least twice during the night in discomfort, the Motrin smothered my pain and I simply went back to sleep. Tuesday morning, I passed the stone with little fanfare. There was not even a flourish of trumpets.

Thanks to a strainer received from the hospital, I caught the newborn inorganic beastie as objective evidence that the ordeal was over. (The jokes about working with a net practically write themselves, so I will not bother.) Kristy and her sisters had a discussion about whether it was appropriate to keep such a souvenir. "THOSE ARE TROPHIES!" insisted Pam, a past kidney stone sufferer. But the debate was moot by Wednesday morning when I bobbled the strainer while packing and tiddlywinked the offending object across the room. It is now lost to the ages.

I reviewed the weather forecast in Maine and saw that conditions at Bar Harbor the next morning were predicted to be IFR with a ceiling of 1,000 feet. That would make for a trivial instrument approach to our destination and well within my proficiency level. Within minutes, the die was cast for the rest of our vacation: we would enjoy our last day in Lake Placid with Izzy and her family, fly to Bar Harbor, ME on Wednesday, and return home on Thursday. There was no longer any need to worry about how we were going to get ourselves or our airplane home.

Placid on Repeat

We quizzed The Bear about how she would like to spend the day.

After considering the question for a moment, she said, "Well...the mini golf place was really cool and you should see it. And I'd like to do the bungee jumping again. And maybe we could paddleboard again."

So, basically," Kristy summarized, "You want to repeat what you did yesterday."

"Yes."

Izzy, Mark and Dena were on board with that. My aspirations for the trip originally included an opportunity to read quietly outdoors in view of the mountains and perhaps a hike to one of the Adirondack peaks. With the lost day, those things were not going to happen.

The Two Bears

Boots and Birdies is a very well-done miniature golf outfit located west of downtown with an American southwest theme. Bandannas, ironic grave markers, and the occasional pillory added character to the course.

We had a great time. Social distancing requirements limited groups to four. Izzy and The Bear (does anyone else hear the "Pinky and The Brain" theme song?) formed a group of two and zipped through the course well ahead of the adults. For the record, The Bear's score was not as good as mine and I did not even win in our group; that honor went to Dena. Sometimes slower is better.

That darn troll seems to pop up wherever we go.

Next came the so-called "bungee jumping", which is not quite as extreme as the name implies. The Bear went first, bounding high into the air by trampoline with a bungee assist. She managed a flip at the apogee of some leaps. It made for entertaining watching.

After her gravity-defying feats, The Bear was clearly feeling a little cocky.

Teenagers...

She Came, She Eye-Rolled, She Played Games on Her Phone

16 September 2007: At The Cottage in Lake Placid during The Bear's first flight to the mountains

Lunch was at The Cottage, the small restaurant associated with the Mirror Lake Inn. It was our first visit there since The Bear's very first flight to Lake Placid at the tender age of not-quite-three-months old. I think that I ordered the exact same sandwich, though.

"Lunch with Teens": Izzy and The Bear engaged in a game of Exploding Kittens

In 2020, lunch with my daughter directly involved me far less than it did back in 2007. I was privileged to pay for lunch on both visits, however.

Like that day in September 2007, we sat outside overlooking Mirror Lake.

Halfway through lunch, Dena and Mark unveiled their super power again by ordering kettle chips that they had forgotten to order in the first place. They came free of charge. How does this keep happening?

Vacation in the COVID Era

We chose our vacation destination carefully. The Village of Lake Placid took COVID precautions seriously and Essex County had zero cases at the time we visited. While visiting the crowded downtown, nearly all people were masked. Both the Hampton and all the restaurants that we patronized took reasonable precautions. 

Semi-Aquatic Paddling Bear of Action

The Bear being dramatic in the Hampton Inn's elevator

After a post-lunch stop at the hotel to drop off our cars and enjoy a little downtime, we walked to the paddleboard place for our scheduled rental. Kristy had reserved two paddleboards, but as we discussed the matter, we decided that a third would be useful.

"Do you have another paddleboard available?" Dena asked.

"Nope." responded the not-very-engaged teenager running the shop.

"What about a kayak?"

"I'll get back to you." 

He didn't.

So Dena asked again. "Are there any alongside the building?" asked the clerk. We responded that there were.

"OK, just take one." We looked at each other in confusion.

"Do you want me to pay for it?" Dena asked incredulously.

The teen shrugged. "Meh. Just take it."

Either Lake Placid retailers are super casual as a rule, or Dena was just warming up her super power with the kettle chips at The Cottage. I think that maybe she should have taken me to the ER, because I am very anxious about what that invoice is going to look like and getting a break on those costs would be no bad thing.

While the girls readied their paddleboards, I noticed that landing traffic at the Lake Placid Airport was using runway 14. Hmmm. That's unusual. In thirteen years of visiting Lake Placid by light aircraft, I had only landed on runway 14 once. This meant that the wind blowing through Lake Placid was coming from an unusual direction, likely portending rotten weather (spoiler alert: it was).

Izzy and The Bear headed toward the center of Mirror Lake on their paddleboards and turned north. They were already out of sight by the time I situated myself in the kayak.

I had to work to catch up to them. In the center of the lake, we were subject to a strong southerly wind, which explained the aircraft using runway 14. I cautioned the girls that the trip back to the south end of the lake was going to be a challenge. "Oh, we know," they assured me. "Someone else already told us that."

Famous last words.

I turned the kayak south and fought the wind the entire way. While it was not exactly a gale, I was soaked by spray smashing over the bow of the kayak as I paddled south through tiny breakers. When I returned to shore, I surrendered the kayak to Mark who disappeared to the north.

They were gone a long time.

"Izzy? Izzy who?"

The Bear reappeared first, aghast over the strength of the wind. Was it time for an "I told you so?" It seemed like it might have been.

"I dunno...back there somewhere."

Mark helped tow Izzy back and they appeared in our sheltered cove a few minutes behind The Bear.

I tried out the paddleboard and The Bear made a quick excursion in our free kayak before we finished for the afternoon and returned everything to the rental shop.

On our way back to the hotel with the girls walking some distance ahead of us, we passed a group of teenagers and overheard one of the boys excitedly telling his friends about the cool "Ahsoka Lives" t-shirt he just saw. Kristy and I smirked as we made our way past.

The Negative Control Experiment

Several of our first choices for dinner that night were either closed or had longer than desired waits, so we ordered take-out from the local greasy spoon, 'Dack Shack with plans to dine at the hotel. Kristy and I took this opportunity to conduct a negative control experiment by volunteering to pick up the food for both families.

Interestingly, without Dena or Mark present, no part of our dinner was comped. 

Coincidence?

Mirror Lake in the calm after the storm

Our drive to the 'Dack Shack coincided with passage of a squall line through Lake Placid. The rate of rainfall overwhelmed the Hyundai's windshield wipers and the street drainage. We proceeded carefully through unfamiliar flooded streets, but managed to deliver everyone's dinner.

I had the fish and chips. "How was it?" Mark asked.

"Kinda greasy," I answered.

"So, really good then," Mark correctly concluded.

We made a final visit to Emma's Lake Placid Creamery, where The Bear picked up a Maple Creme ice cream inspired by the popular Maple Creemees of Vermont, a delicacy that nearly triggered a full-on family civil war during SurnameFest 2015 when Kristy and her sisters got them behind everyone else's backs.

There was also a bonus...

Matching t-shirts! The girls were very pleased with themselves over these shirts.

That night, we said our goodbyes to Izzy, Mark, and Dena and prepared for the next step in our 2020 vacation. Having already managed a missing rental car and a kidney stone, we proceeded with high confidence that not much else could possibly go wrong.

What was that earlier line about famous last words?