Sunday, January 16, 2011

Largest Pipe Organ in the US? located in Macys of Philadelphia

Road trip to Philadelphia to drop off some stuff for my Belle. She had to go to school a week earlier and since we were white knuckle driving, skating and drinking beer in Lake Placid last weekend, she had to take the bus back, thus leaving a whole bunch of stuff home.

One of those one day back and forth trips, beautiful sunny day, hey isn't it always sunny in Philadelphia? dropped off her stuff at her apartment, then we walked to the Reading Market, on of my favorite Philadelphia institutions for some lunch/dinner and food shopping. The line at my favorite sandwich spot, Tony DeNics, roast pork hero with greens, just the thought of it makes my pants get tight, was slamming and i didn't want to wait so i walked around to find another spot with a shorter line. Decided to stop at Hershel's for a corned beef sandwich. They make a nice size 'wich but the corned beef was dry and not worth it, should of stood on the Tony DeNic's line.

Walked back, said our goodbyes, drove home with a pit stop at my mom's.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Lake Placid - Jan 8 & 9

 Snowy Lake Placid - Sunday AM
 Lake Placid HS - Overlooking Oval
 My little guy fueling up
OVAL




So we left Friday afternoon in that nasty snowstorm to head up to Lake Placid. It has been a while since i driven in such dangerous conditions. It took an hour on 684/84 to get 15 miles down the road and then another hour just to get to New Paltz. I saw very few, if any plows all the way up 87. It seemed that every time that we pulled over in halfway decent conditions, from 5 minutes to 20 minutes, it always seemed that the storm caught up to me and put me right back into bad driving conditions.

 The weather radar said that the snow stopped in Albany, Lake George, Warrensburg but the snow never stopped. There was one point where we were in white out conditions, three lanes of traffic and no tire tracks to follow with 18 wheelers flying by, totally white knuckled craziness.
When we finally reached the Cascades, where normally the weather changes for the worse, it stopped snowing. we came cruising into unsnowy Lake Placid, where it seems to snow everyday, in beautiful clear/cold conditions, kind of Bizarro world,  8 1/2 hours later on a trip that usually takes 4 1/2 hours.

We dropped off everything at a friends condo and went right to the Great Adirondak Steakhouse and Brewery for some Saison, Roggenbier and some Black Diamond Stouts. After a couple of those the adrenaline subsided and i was able to go too sleep, not at the bar but at the condo.

Saturday AM was a beautiful sunny 22 degree day in LP, it seemed like no jacket was required unless you were standing around the oval watching skating. I started my weekend of ingesting lousy Stewart's coffee, a lot of them, watched my little guy compete, went back to the condo to eat lunch and crash a bit. Dropped everybody off at the rink and then went to the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery where i had some Double White Ales and Winter Lagers, picked everybody up and went to the local bakery, for me it was the second time that day, loaded up on good bread and went home to make dinner.

After dinner we went to the local skaters boarding house , where we hung out with a bunch of people from Ottawa, drinking wine and Molson Canadians. The funny part was watching the Jets game, which I lost $5 on, with a bunch of Canadian kids. There were some funny conversations going on. During breaks i would hang out with the adults who were breaking my horns over my supposed accent.

Woke up Sunday to 6" of fresh powdery snow, drove to the rink, drank more lousy Stewart's coffee, watched a race, stopped at the brewery for growlers, closed until noon, stopped at the bakery, open, for more bread and apple fritters, went to Lisa's art opening, stopped in Saratoga to pick up beer and my little guy and got home in time to see the Packers beat the Eagles.