Just got back from a wonderful and relaxing vacation in the Adirondacks with our good friends Mark and Kelly. For whatever reason, Jeannie and I didn’t feel like traveling far away by plane this summer, so we kept it relatively close with a road trip within New York State.
We packed Friday night and drove up Saturday. We got lunch on the way in Lake George Village in a restaurant on the waterfront. By the time we got up there it was mid-afternoon. Lizzy and Josh happened to be spending the weekend in Lake Placid, so we met them for dinner at some nice restaurant there. Fancy cocktails all around, and yummy food. Lizzy remembered Mark and Kelly from when we used to vacation up there when she was a child, so that was a fun reunion. I think the last time she was in Lake Placid we went to see a Harry Potter movie in the theatre there.
Sunday the main event was an epic bike ride. There’s a rail trail going in either direction from Saranac Lake to Placid one way and Tupper Lake the other. Last summer we did the ride to Placid, so this time we did went towards Tupper. We didn’t get all the way into town but it was a good long ride, over twenty miles. We stopped and turned around at a park and campground at Clear Lake Pond (I think it was), where there was a nice beach for swimmin’. On the way back we stopped for lunch at a place on the side of the trail. All in all this took the better part of the day. We spent most of the evening hanging out and listening to music. Mark turned me on to a group call Tin Hat Trio. Neat stuff, sort avant-garde gypsy jazz combined with Americana and twentieth century modern classical. Excelling violin and accordion player. Mark also showed me his guitar pedal board. He’s been collecting pedals and experimenting with multiple loops and delays. Great sound and he’d getting quite good at it.
Monday was the start of the main event, a three-day camping trip to Pine Island (I think) on Lower Saranac Lake. We spent the morning getting our canoe, food and supplies together, then we drove out to the boat launch. Everything had to be brought in by canoe. Mark and Kelly have two small, single-person canoes, which Jeannie and Kelly rode, while Mark and I paddled the larger, two-person canoe. We had to make two trips, since our load shifted right when we set out, and one of our coolers slid into the water! Luckily it floated. It was a pretty long paddle, about a mile and a half, took about forty-five minutes. Mostly thru twisting bays and channels, but the last part was out in the open waters of the lake. After paddling out and back and out again we were pretty tired.
One we set up our tents, the rest of the time there was pretty mellow and blissful. The weather was hot (Jeannie and I seem to bring the hot weather with us whenever we go up to Adirondacks, Thousand Islands or Montreal) so we went swimmin’ every day. Also more canoeing, exploring the other islands on the lake, some light hiking, and hanging around making campfires and cooking. The second night we all went out to the swimmin’ rock to watch the Perseids meteor shower. Saw lots of shooting stars, and even a UFO, all glowing and swirly in the night sky for several minutes. We later learned was a detached booster from a rocket launch, falling back to Earth and burning up in the atmosphere.
Wednesday morning it was time to go. The trip back was much lighter. We’d consumed most of our food and firewood, plus Mark and Kelly left their tent since they were planning on coming back on the weekend. We had planned on hanging out on our little island until after lunch, but there was a thunderstorm coming so we packed down and lit out rather quickly. Good thing too. As we made the boat trip the looming clouds came a-rumbling in, but by the time it actually started raining we were putting our boats on our cars.
Wednesday night Mark’s band Crackin’ Foxy had a gig at a bandshell in a park over in Tupper. The band is soft of a mix of dixieland jazz and and old time country. The rhythm section is Mark on banjo accompanied by a tuba, and the horn section is a trombone, trumpet and soprano sax. All excellent players and a fun sound and repertoire. They recently lost their lead singer so everyone in the group sang a few songs. Mark invited me to sit in, so I brought my saxophone along. Funny thing, everyone else in the band except the sax player is named John, so to bring me on stage, Mark asked the audience if there was anyone out there named John who plays sax. The song I sat in on was the standard Comes Love.
Thursday it was time to head home, and we had lunch in Lake George again. Thursday night I had rehearsal with my own band. Friday was a rare complete day off, so Jeannie and I ended up unpacking our camping stuff, and doing laundry and other random tasks, but at much more relaxed pace than we would otherwise.
Saturday Jeannie and I went for a bike ride on our local rail trail. I did twenty-two and a half miles again. Jeannie’s brother Denis was in town came up to our place Saturday and came out to our gig.
Saturday night was the Spacecats’ gig at the Green Growler. We debuted about six new tunes, three originals and three covers or standards. The group is really connecting and sounding great. We’ve gotten to the point where we have our own distinctive sound, even with a wide variety of material across the spectum of jazz, funk, soul and prog. Everyone is really dynamic and interactive on the stand, listening and feeding ideas to one another. We probably have enough new material to record a second album, and may very well do so in the fall. Only problem is, we need to find a way to get more people to come out to our gigs! The place was only half full, and half of those were friends and family. Ah well, it’s August and everyone is away. Still, the music is happening, and so they’ll come eventually. Meanwhile it’s time to start reaching out to other venues so we can build the thing that way.