I have been trying to drive myself to write about the memorable Lake George visit for the last 3 days. Just did not want the detailed memories to fade with time. Next week, Devaki's parents are visiting us. So there will be many more interesting things to write too.
The day of Lake George (may sound too historical) was June 23. All 4 of us (you have to read the earlier post first to understand who is 'us' ) did not wake up before 8 am. We hit the road at around 9:30 as we had expected. It was veg toast sandwich for breakfast. And the same was packed for lunch. But we made sure we carried some snacks too. The drive was good. We headed northwards from our place on I87 towards Montreal (Canada). For those who don't know, you can actually drive in to Canada from US without any hassle. Many Canadian cars are seen on this road. And the funny thing is Buffalo, which is in US is farther from our place as compared to Montreal. Anyways, as we moved north on to this highway, we saw a lot of forest parks and a lot more tree cover. The terrain too was much more mountainous. This large area is called Catskill Forests just like say Sahayadris in India. Lake George is a part of Catskill . On the way, we stopped at the service area for 5 minutes. Devaki was thrilled with the display of plants there. Btw, she is always thrilled after seeing all those flower plants in Stop n shop,Walmart, Sams club and every place we go. And she always buys at least one. :-) In our balcony we have around 10-15 flower plants of different variety.
The new GPS fitted in the car made our life very easy. I do not miss those days when we carried printouts of the directions every time we visited any new place. As we entered Lake George, the place seemed to be more and more lively. We had entered the Lake George village which is like the downtown for Lake George, where you will find most of the restaurants and activities. We parked our car in one of the parking lots in this area, probably the most costly one. The sad part is that we realized that only 2 hours after we parked. Devaki and Sumel were eager to get down and enter many of the small shopping outlets. Jatinder and I promised them that we will do it later towards the end of the day and now we must do what we had planned earlier i.e. Para sailing.
We climbed down from the parking lot which was on the shores of the lake. The lake is situated in a small valley surrounded by mountains on almost all sides. It's roughly 20 miles long and 2 miles wide. Reminded me of Nainital lake from what pictures I have seen of it. For some time, we walked on the small walking track along the lake. There were very small beaches on the way, where many people were sun bathing, swimming or reading a book. We saw some folks with their fishing gear too. Next thing to do was to have lunch as our stomachs were demanding it. So we sat on a tiny grassy patch of land slightly elevated and overlooking the lake. We were given company by a bold duck which seemed to have joined us from the middle of nowhere. It was highly attracted to Devaki or Devaki's sandwich and moved so close to her that she got up and started running helter skelter. All of us were laughing aloud at that point of time. But definitely Devaki was not enjoying much so I helped her to scare the duck. Surprisingly, the duck took off in the air and landed in the lake. For those e of you who are interested, I even have a picture of that bold duck in the photo album in my earlier post.
Post lunch, we walked further on the walking track passing some lake view restaurants and many docking stations for the private boats. We saw someone para sailing from a distance and immediately, all of us were excited and wanted to be in the air asap. We asked some passerby for the directions for the base area of para sailing and reached there in minutes. The lady at the small para sailing office made us sign an agreement, which said something like, If i die while doing this , none other than I am responsible for it. The usual disclaimer when you do any adventure activity. We came to know that this can be done singles as well as doubles. Devaki and Sumel quickly bought the doubles idea and that gave them some more mental strength.
We boarded a medium sized boat with a flat surface to facilitate take off and landing of the parachute. Devaki and Sumel were to go first. When they came down, Devaki was not talking and Sumel had enjoyed every bit of it. Devaki surprisingly felt giddy. It was least expected as she had thoroughly enjoyed paragliding in Manali. Next to go was Paape and he really enjoyed. He was worried about his Pagadi getting blown away by the air flow but I noticed that it was in its place when he landed. Not sure what happened in between though. I was the last to go from the whole group. And what an experience it was. The flight was quite long. Around 10 minutes in the air at an altitude of around 300 feet. It felt so isolated from the world. There were interim strong wind currents to give some sudden n jerks but overall the flight was smooth. Tiny islands in the lake could be seen clearly from up there. In 2 minutes, I pretty much got used to the altitude and later I was waving to the people travelling on the local cruise.
We proceeded to the car park and moved out our car, determined not to park there any longer, at such exorbitant rates. We then drove northwards along the east side of the lake. And it was a nice drive with small resorts on the way. We saw several camping grounds on the way just like our colleague Andrew had mentioned. The camping grounds were packed with people. After driving for around 10 miles, we decided to head back home and we were home by 8:30 pm.
We thought of spending at least a night in Lake George, the next time we go there. That place was definitely not worth going for a day trip. Such was its beauty !
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