A Weekend in the Adirondacks

The Adirondacks is one of those places that, in its own way, is kind of mystical. Something about the sunlight, the way the trees reflect in the lakes and ponds, and the way the woods and the mountains absorb sound all make you feel like you’ve escaped somewhere.

During the summer, the days are warm and sunny, and the nights are refreshingly cool–perfect for sitting around the campfire. And the sheer volume of mountains, lakes, hiking trails, and good fishing is the perfect antidote to suburban and urban monotony.

In the name of getting out of suburban Jersey, we decided to make the trek up to the Adirondacks for July 4th weekend a few weeks ago to get our fix of camping, fishing, and kayaking. So we took the long and winding drive up to the mountains.

Barley by our side, of course.

The main purpose of the trip was to do a little fishing, as bass season began at the end of June. We stopped at Hoss’s Country Corner to pick up our fishing licenses and a few other sundries (guarded by a gang of taxidermied critters, of course) before heading to the campsite and settling in for the night.

The next day we woke up bright and early. A breakfast of eggs, toast, and thick-cut bacon will make any human–ANYONE–feel like a king on the Oregon Trail. We highly recommend it. (And, yes, I mean the computer game. Child of the 90s here.)

Our original plan to rent a boat and fish on Raquette Lake was foiled by strong winds, choppy waters, and a particularly cautious boat rental attendant, but after asking some locals, we discovered a great place along a rocky shore to do some fishing. And lo and behold, we caught a few!!!

We headed back to the campsite, triumphant, and promptly set about making dinner. Stay tuned during the next couple of weeks for two recipes that we made during our trip! One of them is a fish fry recipe that we did over the campfire with a few simple ingredients. The other is another camping ramen recipe, part 2 after last month’s part 1. After filleting the bass for the fish fry, we even managed to make a soup using the rest of the fish! 

I’ll let you in on a secret and say that the real mission of the trip was to catch a few bass for recipe fodder, so once that was out of the way, the next day we were able to do some leisurely kayaking on Blue Mountain Lake.

Work hard, play hard, right? 

Of course, you can’t take the fisherman out of my dad, who was still trying to see if he could muster another dinner out of the lake right up until we started in on our drive back home.