Who's creepin' through the streets of the city

Been driving all night, my hands wet on the wheel, enough moths in the headlights to make it look like I was the first person to get a vanagon into hyperspace, and no end in sight. According to the GPS I had gotten to within 9.2 miles of my destination, Lake Placid, and was now starting to move away.1:45 am, and even my high tolerance for ambiguity was being sorely tested....

At the exit for the bridge, traffic started to back up. As it was only a little ways to the bridge, I didn't worry. After a while, I noticed a bunch of helicopters flying around the bridge. Started scanning radio stations for news, and, guess what, the bridge was closed. Apparently a scaffolding holding some workers on the bridge collapsed, and they were hanging by their safety harnesses. Checked out the map, and headed up the road to the tunnel. Made my way to the tunnel and on through into Windsor. This route required me to drive through the city to get on the highway, unlike the bridge which pretty much dumps you on the highway. All told, I was about 2 hours behind schedule at this point. Thought I was in for a boring drive, but then I found the All Corey Hart/Anne Murray All The Time radio station, and everything was ok.

The delay at the border crossing had the unfortunate effect of putting my arrival into the Toronto greater metropolitan area at rush hour. And based on the traffic reports, it was a pretty ugly rush hour too. So I sat in traffic, adding another hour or two to the trip. Once through Toronto, things opened up, including the wind. A lot. I began to feel like a member of the math club trying to leave school just as football practice is letting out. I was getting pushed 2-3 feet side to side by the wind. There were times when I had the steering wheel turned about a fifth of the way around to go straight. It was not fun. After a few hours of this, I was finally able to get off the highway to head into the US. I didn't realize I was in the 1000 islands area, which was really beautiful, I wish I had realized that was where I was going to be and taken some time to look around. Heading into the US, I got to cross this bridge...

...which fortunately I didn't realize until I was almost on it, so I didn't have any time to get freaked out about being so high. Calculating my speed to cross a bridge is a complex formula involving several variables including how slow can I get away with driving, while driving fast enough to get to the other side so I can start breathing again before I pass out.

As you can see, it is dusk, at which point I should have already been in Lake Placid. So I start heading down I-81 looking for route 30 across the state. Unfortunately, I missed the exit and went about 10 miles past it before turning on the GPS and realizing it. Loaded up Lake Placid as a destination in the GPS so I could make sure not to go in the wrong direction again. Back up the interstate and onto the correct road, which was actually almost a fun drive, no cars and lots of twisty turns (too bad I wasn't in the BMW). Although I was getting tired was sort of a nice drive, although it was getting late, past midnight and I still had a ways to go, with no idea where I was going to spend the night. There was a campground or two that I had found out about, but they were long closed for the night by now, and even though they have late check-in, I wasn't exactly sure where they were. Had started thinking about a Wal-Mart parking lot, but my cell phone (Sprint sucks) was not working in spite of a strong signal (don't use Sprint), so I couldn't call and find one. Finally about 2am, I had just missed the last turn for Lake Placid at Saranac, and decided to stop in a parking area alongside the road that they have for trucks. Unfolded the bed, pulled the curtains shut, put my flashlight and nightstick next to me and crashed. Slept great till about 9:30, too late to get any significant hiking in, and besides the weather wasn't great. Drove into Lake Placid and talked to a guy in an Eastern Mountain Sports store about good trails. Bought a topo and headed for the trailhead. Turns out to be the same trailhead for Mt. Marcy (NY state high point but too late in the day and lousy weather made it not an option).

Having been an "above treeline" "real" mountain snob all of my hiking life, I decided that the Adirondacks are pretty cool and had a great hike. Gets pretty steep and rocky going up the side of Phelps mountain. Ran into some people coming down who told me that it was windy with no visibility at the top. Not sure I ever made it to the top because visibility got so bad couldn't see very far. It looked like smoke from a fire was coming through the trees, but it was just clouds, no fire in the sky. After the hike I was a able to take a quick shower at the campground at the trailhead. The weather wasn't supposed to get any better for a while, so I decided to head back to MD to take care of the tire situation. In spite of the weather had some great scenery on the back roads getting to the highway, where I started heading for Albany with plans to find a campground along the way. Stopped at a few, but they wanted $28!!!!!!. So using the cutting edge technology at my fingertips, I used my satellite uplink (cellphone) to access the master database (parents logged into internet) to search for all Wal-Mart locations in the Albany area, near the highway. After a successful search, I downloaded the coordinates to my laptop (wrote the address on the back of an envelope and typed into MS Strees & Trips) and calculated the most direct route. From there it was another hour down the road to the Wal-mart, where I found two other RV's parked for the night and settled in for a great nights sleep. Next stop, Maryland and major improvements to the van.....