Tues 11 Sept

I liked the Woot monkeys' dialogue this morning. It is good to take a moment to reflect on 9/11 and the people who were lost, then to give thanks that we are still alive and to enjoy the things we love. Looks like another lovely day, weather-wise. We head out to the Adirondacks today and stay in that lovely, funky Hotel Saranac. Hopefully we'll find some little hiking trails along the way or at the end. We have been pretty sedentary so far. I did get u and do some little exercise in the room this morning - a few warm-up movements, some sit-ups, pushups, tricep dips, and side leg lifts. Felt good. Also feels good to eat a more normal breakfast. We found a Costco here so I could load up on fresh raspberries. Drove along the 401 this morning and stopped in a smaller city just past Kingston for lunch. Found a little British Pub where I was able to order steak and kidney pie and we had treacle tart for dessert. Dad had an Aussie Burger topped with a fried egg and pickled beets. It was delightful and delicious! Ran into a looooong delay for road construction after crossing the border into upstate New York, but finally passed through and into the Adirondacks. Tupper Lake is still a quaint town but Saranac Lake appears to have declined a bit. The hotel is no longer run by the hospitality school. The restaurant has closed entirely and the hotel doesn't appear to be using all the floors. The check-in clerk was a little weird and said he had to call the manager who was an older Indian man. He proceeded to walk the young guy through the whole check-in process and we were given a room on the 6th (top) floor. Once inside the room, everything was lovely. Nice bath products, clean room, wi-fi. Just strange staff. We took a walk through the town area and settled on a restaurant fairly close to the hotel that had a good crowd. Most of the other restaurants we had walked past were almost totally empty. The restaurant we chose was really quite good. We weren't too hungry, so we chose to split a grilled ham & cheese and an order of sweet potato fries. The waitress said sweet potato fries are great with honey so she dug up some in a cup to accompany them. It is an interesting combination, brings out the sweetness of the sweet potatoes. Food: 6:45 am 1 c Shreddies, 1/2 c skim milk, 2 c rapberries, coffee 10:30 am Rice Krispie treat 1:30 pm 2/3 steak and kidney pie, nice green salad w/balsamic dressing, 1/2 treacle tart w/ice cream, 8-9 oz Vermont cider 6:45 pm 1/2 grilled ham & cheese, 1/2 order sweet potato fries w/honey, 12 oz dark beer Exercise: 6:00-6:30 pm Walk around Saranac Lake