@camp /on vacation
Finally made it to the Adirondack Mountains. This will be the view when I wake up in the morning for the next 2.5 weeks.
I'm so happy to be here. Now if only my books and clothes would show up. All in good time.
Yesterday was a marathon of a travel day. After leaving for the airport around 9am pacific, I got on my flight after having been delayed at the gate for an hour. Then after flying to right around Cleveland, OH, they held us up to let a series of strong storms pass through the Newark & upstate New York / New England region.
 |
 |
 |
 |
After arriving at Newark, I bolted for my connecting flight to ALB, but that was also delayed, so I'm thinking ok. I can manage that. Then the series of delays started first it was 9:35, then 10:19, then 11:30, then 12:20am. At about 10pm, I decided to bag it and rent a car. Problem is that the Continental customer service line was a mile long and I wanted nothing to do with it.
 |
 |
So I bet on my social engineering skills and headed through security to baggage claim area. I went up to the Continental baggage claim desk, and pleaded my case. The woman who helped me was very kind and helpful and cancelled my flght and filed a claim for my duffle bag which should be delivered to our place about an hour north of ALB. [Fingers crossed, as I still don't have my duffle with all my clothes and more importantly, my books.]
After filing my baggage claim check, I proceeded to the Budget Car rental kiosk and picked up some kind of SUV/mini-van looking Suzuki. This is about 11:00pm Eastern. Then I hit the road heading out of Newark north on I-95 to the NY State Thruway. Well, it soon occurs to me that I've got no cash, change, etc, which makes paying for tolls a bit of a challenge. This happened to me twice before I finally found an ATM (after several failed attempts at other stops).
Then I head for the Palisades Parkway, connect to I-87N (NY State Thruway) for a really boring 2.5hr-ish drive in miserable weather with truckers and other weaving drivers to contend with. I started to fade out at about 2:30am so decided to call ALB my destination (rather than heading all the way to our place on the Lake). So I drive to the Cell phone waiting lot at ALB and crash out in the most uncomfortable position imaginable until I can wake up drop my rental car off and get picked up by my dad.
My wake up call comes at around 8am, drop the rental car off, and wait for my dad to come pick me up. On the way from ALB to our place on the Sacandaga Lake, we stopped to see a couple of the local rivers raging as a result of the storms they've seen over the past few days. Impressive stuff. Here's what we saw:
 |
 |
 |
 |
Now I'm pretty much operating on vapors at this point having gone to bed at 4:20am the night prior, minimal sleep on the plane, and a long night of driving. I think I'm about ready to crash out for a while and hopefully when I wake up my luggage will be here.
It's currently raining and there are T-storms in the region. I'm 100% content. That is all.