Adirondaks NY State
FRIDAY, 10/2/92: Pack by 9:30 and start going through piles of stuff when Suzie rings at 10:07 AM. I'm going out when John's going down and I tell him Suzie's parked downstairs. Leave about 10:15 and get trapped only once on the FDR by traffic. Across George Washington Bridge and up empty Palisades Parkway to ill-marked entry to NY State Thruway. Across and north with her Snicker Doodles cookies, and at 12:15 I suggest we get out at Newburgh for lunch. Stop at Athena at 12:25 and she has pita pizza and I have hot chicken wings and a gyro (yee-ro) and have too much, as usual. Back on road at 12:55 and north to Albany and Northway and up to Warrensburg, slow because of everyone setting up for the weekend's sales. Through North River and North Creek (or vice versa) and she spots 13th Lake Road, and we go in at 4:50, dim and windy. They're JAMMED for weekend so I don't change from Room 6, where Joe and I were before. I unpack some stuff and shit one tiny turd and get to Happy Hour at Griswalds' room 4 at 5:10 with Southern Comfort and a glass. Gary and Betty and mongoloid daughter Deborah (Debs) and Jan (broad) and Jo (narrow) and Suzie and we all regret Joe's not being here, so we're 9, not 10, and eat early at 6, having GOOD steak and share a liter of White Zinfandel, which blots me out totally by 8, helped by an ENORMOUS delicious brownie sundae for dessert. Up and sit on porch, and get to bed at 9 PM!
SATURDAY, 10/3/92: Wake at 5:30 and shower and down for eggbeaters French toast and blueberry pancake and butter and hot chocolate. Brush teeth and out to walk nearby since it's foggy, and back by 11:30 to order lunch of lentil soup and toasted cheese. Up to plop into bed and sleep from 1-3. Wake at 3 and decide to jerk off, to 3:50, and rest, and happy hour's in Jan and Jo's for 16, and Kimball and Mary bring "Italian Dream": amaretto, vodka, and Bailey's Irish Cream, which I have TWO of! Down for buffet at 6: white turkey meat and beef and onion cake and spinach on first plate, dark turkey meat and potatoes and gravy and corn and carrots and onion cake on second plate, then jello and fruit and two breads, then cherry pie and a scoop of vanilla for my STUFFED exit upstairs at 7:40. Read to 9:10 and bed EXHAUSTED.
SUNDAY, 10/4/92: Wake at 12:35 for dream 1: With a Spanish-speaking woman, driving through Spanish Harlem, elaborate details I've forgotten. 4:25 AM: Dream 2: Wandering Berlin and in a gay clothing store on an elegant square I meet two fellow tourists, one of whom seems to like me, and I take photo of an icon-filled shrine and walk toward a VERY elaborate facade with an overhanging canopy, and end up in an apartment with him and start kissing and feeling bodies, and he says he doesn't CARE to be safe, but I worry a bit. Then sequence where we're watching a "Fourth initiation" of a German Actualism class when a couple wander off into a construction area and it IMPLIES they either have sex OR go out into the city for enlightenment, and we're asked in an est-like way to sign up, and I'm torn between sightseeing the foreign town and doing Actualism in NYC, or taking the chance that Germany has some MORE to offer. Decide to tour, but leave it up to my friend, and I wake to shit. Then jerk off AGAIN and up at 7:10 to shower and wash hair and down at 7:55 for all to stand, talking, and then go to breakfast. ONE blueberry pancake and home fries and five slices of bacon, and I'm up to brush teeth and down to read Sunday Times Book and Magazine sections and leave at 9:45 for Old Farm Road. Stop at Elizabeth Point: first for lunch of half a ham-and-cheese sandwich and chips and three cookies. At 1 start for Sacandaga River and get there by 2, lovely weather and leaves and temperature, and back to car at 3, and drive back to wash and set up my place for happy hour at 5, and catch this up by 4:30, getting ready for chairs and goodies to arrive any minute! Down for ice at 4:50, finding it's only 4:45 by their clock, and up to find Jo searching for me. She hostesses as I go down for a pitcher of water and more spare glasses but everyone brings his own. Only 15 in, Fran and Charlie Bruns, Betty and ? Carpenter (?), and everyone else. BETSY says CHARLIE wants to sing, but actually mainly SHE and MACK sing! Down at 6:10 and I'm put at a table with Suzie and Betsy and Kendyl and Mary, and they don't even have ice cream sundaes. My NY strip is overdone, and the kids keep screaming in the main room, so I'm happy to clump upstairs at 8:20 and read some and fall into bed at 9:10.
MONDAY, 10/5/92: Wake at 5:30 and watch sunrise from 6 AM, then shower at 7:10 and down to eat early, told that ferries across the lake for the Peaked Mountain climb will be just before 10 AM. Up at 8:40 to add new film and spare battery to heavy shoulder bag and catch this up by 8:55, ready to clean teeth while looking at the tranquility outside. Breakfasters groan along the hall outside. Suzie had knocked last night for a "nightcap," but I said I'd fall into bed NOW, thank you. Counting days and hours and meals (6) and showers (2) left until Wednesday departure and FINAL arrival at HOME! 10:30 over 13th Lake and LOVELY Peaked Mountain Brook and crossing and Beaver Meadow and small pond and PM pond and ledges above and HARD climb to 1:30 top; and lunch to 1:50 descent after pictures. Meet Gary at 2:30 and to boat at 3:10 and across and SOAK in tub with two lemonades. Happy hour with LOTS of junk and told that it's "Football night" and I can't have the lounge to show my slides, so I ask for the portable screen to be brought to Room 6. Dinner from 6:30 to 9 PM, extremely long, natch, with only one poor waiter and lots of parties outside, with HUGELY salmony bisque, and vegetables and baked potato and fried trout. Baby next door sleeping so we're down to the DINING room and clear tables and set up screen by 9:15, and I show a QUICK New Zealand and Galapagos show to 10:15. Get to bed at 10:30.
TUESDAY, 10/6/92: Wake at 4 and again at 6:10 with "head alarm" and nonsensically detailed dreams: 1) LONG line paying for religious goods in a foreign Cloister-like setting, and 2) estimate payment-plan for attracting buyers of four stubs of various currencies for premiums for cashing in combinations with odd dollars left to be added on their last, or even 5th, stub-payment. Just NIGGLING. Up to shit and write these notes, legs sore but not PAINFUL after yesterday's climb. Day's walk to Sugar House, two-sandwich lunch, splinter in finger, back at 2 to shower and set up video by 2:50. Kendyl and Mary start, after final-pooling a BLAST till 6:20. QUICK dinner and taping to 8:40 when younger Webbs leave and Jo insists on slides. They go over GREAT, everyone loving them, and Monty asks, "What did the trip do for you?" and Eleanor says, "You were always one of my favorite people," and I bomb by asking, "WHY don't you get a phone?" Bed 10:50, and wake at 4 to pee.
WEDNESDAY, 10/7/92: Up again at 6:55 and write this when I sit up at 7:10---LAST day! Another bacon-filled breakfast and back up to pack and get down about 10 AM to say goodbye to everyone and drive south, Suzie talking about how distant she was from her family, which might go some toward explaining her silence and low self-esteem. Then we drive quietly until I'm hungry for lunch about 1:30 and we pass the old Motel on the Mountain in Suffern, and I say, "Let's go up there!" Off the highway and around traffic to huge (second largest in United States) torii gate to Fuji Restaurant, and we sit at the window, having to take off our shoes, and I'm relieved to see the entrees are about $10, not expensive as I'd feared. Enjoy the Benihana-style cooking on the grille, chicken and beef mixed, and beer and tea, and out about 3 and down south through blessedly empty highways until she drops me off at home about 4:30, and I get upstairs and feel GREATLY relieved that I don't have to travel ANY more for a LARGE number of months. Feel guilty that I haven't typed up the pages from the South African trip yet, and there are two MORE trips to type up, but at least now, 11/27/92, I've finished ALL the notebook-transcriptions and have just to catch up with the NOTES from before, and then I can get to the index that has to be done before Sunday, and I realize this is becoming a kind of NOTEBOOK page, but at least I'm down to the end of THIS page for one of the shortest transcriptions of a trip YET! And I'm hungry for lunch now!