Tom and Diane have been going camping for the last 35 years. We find it soothes our
souls and restores our sanity. Every year we return to our favorite place in the
Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. Since Tom retired, we go for three
weeks every years at the end of the summer. The camp is on Lewey and Indian Lakes about one
hour northwest of Lake George. It is an area in the central Adirondack Forest Preserve
that has the most wilderness area, good size mountains and the most bears. We have also
been camping in Acadia National Park in Maine, on the beach in Montauk, New York and Assateague Island in Maryland (wild ponies). We have had some very interesting experiences
we would like to share with you.
We've also added two photo albums so you can really get in the spirit. Take a look
at our idea of heaven on earth--visit our
Camping Album and our
Waterfalls Album.
Recently, our friends who live year round at Indian Lake took pictures of
our campsite in October and in January--so now you can also see what it looks like in the
fall
with all
the leaves in full color and in the dead of winter with snow on the mountains and the lake frozen. In our
Waterfalls Album, we
included pictures of the falls at Lewey Lake as they looked the day after
Hurricane Katrina hit the Adirondacks.
Camping with Kitties
In past years, we adopted a number of kittens and took them camping with us in the
mountains. This was really an adventure. Since
these "girls" are indoor cats, we wanted them to be able to enjoy and
experience the outdoors safely, so we hunted for quite some time for an
appropriate enclosure where they could see out, could not run away, be safe
from wild animals, and give them enough room to run and jump. In the end, we
got them their own tent. It had a regular closed tent in the back with
a fully enclosed screen room in the front. With this, they could spend
the day watching the ducks and chipmunks and people on the lake and then be
secured at night or if it rained. Now we have a sleeping
tent, a screen tent for eating, a kitchen canopy tent for our cooking area;
and the cat's tent. A neighbor in the next campsite came over and
wanted to know if we were going to have a big party with all those tents!!! Lots of people bring dogs, but we
have been the first to
bring cats to the campsite. They were the hit of the campground--people stopped
their cars on the road to look at them; people came into the campsite to see them and talk
to us about them; people brought their children to pet them; people took pictures,
etc. As a matter of fact, it caused such a stir that word even spread to the town of
Indian Lake We heard town's people talking about it in the Laundromat and the local
pub, and Tom was given the local nickname of "Tom Cat"!!! The cats adapted very well. They were mesmerized with the ducks,
birds and chipmunks in the site. They took to riding in a big carrier on the boat
and sniffed the fish we caught and showed them. They rode all over with us when we
went antiquing. Take a look at our "little girlies" (Marmalade--the orange one; Creamsicle--the buff one; Truffle
--the black one; Marshmallow --the white one; and Pepper the striped one) on our
Camping Kitties page.
Camping Trials and Tribulations
During the years, we have encountered many (shall we say) challenges during our camping
vacations. They have ranged from relatively minor things like continually sliding off the
air mattress to life threatening experiences and Hurricanes Katrina and Irene. Do you want to know more? Visit
Trials and Tribulations in the middle
of the Adirondacks. Read about our latest adventures from last summer.
Gourmet Cooking and Romance At the Campsite
If you have already visited our cooking pages, you're probably wondering what do these
people eat in the wilderness. Well, how many people do you know who take
Champagne vinegar, foie gras, lobster, duck breast, crabmeat, sushi quality tuna, various honeys with nuts,
fresh herbs, figs, and Chanterelle
mushrooms camping? We take two HUGE 160 quart coolers chock full of good stuff. One
year a young couple came into our site to ask if we had an extra stick of butter. We
always laugh about us going to someone else to ask if they might have a few extra shitake
mushrooms. We do eat a lot of
great meals--dry aged prime steaks, ribs, roast beef, Cornish
hens, grilled pizza, rack of lamb, duck breast, duck confit, foie gras, pancakes,
frittatas of all sorts, baked stratas, breakfast pies, stuffed French Toast, bacon,
mascarpone cream cheese, chilled vegetable and fruit soups, grilled fruits
of all sorts, baked fruit pies and crisps, grilled fruit over grilled
pound cake, slow roasted ribs, grilled whole fish, charcouterie and olive
plates, European cheeses, grilled bruschettas, potatoes gratins and galettes,
grilled stuffed mushrooms of all sorts, grilled stuffed vegetable
boats, grilled European sausages of all sorts, vegetable tarts and bread
puddings, etc. We also bring a couple of bottles of wine
and/or champagne for each
dinner. In the past few years, we have also brought a few bottles of
dessert wine, Reserva Spanish Brandy and/or fine aged Armagnac to sip by the fire after dinner.
We have also started making Sangria and Kir Royales, Yumm! To avoid having the wine killed from the heat, we took a couple small
coolers, and let a little ice melt into cool water under the picnic table. It worked
like a charm and kept the wine at exactly the right temperature. Last
year one night after a weather front came through, the air was crisp, the sky clear with
millions of stars, and the evening still. We turned off all the lanterns and had
only the fire for light. We sipped more soft and velvety French Burgundy while
listening to Placido Domingo or Tony Bennett romantic ballads on the CD player and watched the stars
without saying a word. The evening ended with dancing by the fire under the whole
Milky Way---truly romance incarnate!!! Whenever we can get fresh
seafood, we will also have a seafood course
with dinners, e.g., cold lobster with lemon dill mayo, grilled lobster
rolls, spicy crab cakes, fresh grilled salmon
cakes, grilled king crab legs with melted butter, etc. I also got great use of my
new manual blender and food processer! These work much better than the
battery operated or cordless ones and now Diane has muscles!! As a result we
had lots of smoothies, more fruit and vegetable soups and some lovely
vinaigrettes It is really easy to
roast peppers over the Coleman stove and grill other vegetables to make
grilled pizza, e.g, roasted red pepper and goat cheese pizza,
four cheese and wild mushroom pizza, cheesy corn and tomato pizza. We also end every
meal now with lattés, using my battery operated milk frother. A
couple of years ago, we
replaced the charcoal grill with a medium size table top gas grill. It works very well
to slow cook something like ribs and then turn up the heat to caramelize
them with sauce for the last few minutes. It also is better for baking
since it holds an even temperature. We have been doing a lot of
baking, including pound cakes, fruit crisps and rustic tarts on the gas grill.
Last year, a rather chubby chipmunk jumped up on the table and grabbed a
plum out of a cooling tart and ran off! Want something else great, grill a piece
of foie gras with some grilled honeyed figs--or grill
a piece of pound cake and top it off with a warm fruit compote and some
sweetened & vanilla flavored mascarpone cheese--to die for!!!! If you would like to
hear more about some typical camping meals, visit
Gourmet Camping Menus .
We had added some new menus from last summer. Many of these recipes
are now on our Recipe pages
Camping Inventory
OK, OK--so we're into inventories and lists. Well, off in the wilds of the
Adirondack mountains, there are no shopping malls, and big stores (in a
75 mile radius), and it is 60 miles to a full size grocery store, so we need to make sure that we take everything with us.
Well, do you really want to know what a couple of "foodies" and
"pack-rats" consider just normal and ordinary minimal camping requirements for
three weeks. Well, check out What we take
to make it a memorable
vacation. We have updated it to reflect our more sophisticated cooking
adventures.
Fishing
One of the activities we both enjoy is fishing. Of course, Diane won't put the worm on the
hook, or take the fish off the hook, but it's still fun for all. We have fished so much
that we have both worn out our poles and had to get new ones. On average, we
catch about 60-80 fish each year; however, one year, we
caught over 120 fish a piece. We now have an
electric ignition motor for our boat---no more breaking Tom's arm pulling the ignition
rope!! A couple of years ago we also got an electric trawling motor to use in the shallower
areas and as a back up for the gas motor. This has definitely
come in handy a couple of times when we could not get the gas motor
started--trying to row back to the campsite is a significant problem. In the mountains, we rarely get anything big enough to eat, and always
throw them back in. As a matter of fact, there have been some smart-alec questions when
looking at pictures of our catches, about whether they were fish or earrings. In Montauk,
however, we chartered an ocean fishing boat and Diane caught a 40 pound striped bass.
Unfortunately, we had to throw it back in because it was one inch too short. So--you
don't believe it!! Just another fish story!! Ha--the one that got away!!
Well take a look for yourself!
(Click on the picture to see full size)
For more information on the Adirondacks and camping, visit Adirondacks and Camping Hot Links
Updated March 24, 2018