I finally drove to Brant Lake

Wednesday was a big day. A possible new opportunity presented itself just before I left to meet with an advisor at Hofstra. That meeting went well and I was on the road by around 12:15. Lots to think about but I had to focus on the big trip. I got to Nick's grandma's in Nassau at around 3:10, said hello to his mom and grandma, and we were off! We stopped at Subway in Glens Falls for food, Stewart's in Chestertown for my skim milk, and got to the trailer by around 5:45. Pretty cool... I did it!

We settled in, chatted with my grandparents for a bit, then headed down to the beach to hang out with Cody, Victoria, Abigail, Jessica, Justin and Cori. They were playing ladder golf so we joined in and it was fun. But then dark clouds appeared and the wind picked up. We heard loud thunder and then it poured. Everyone headed inside and Nick and I had the longest walk/run back. It soon began to hail and Nick decided to stick his soda cup outside. "Free ice!" I think we started a game of Monopoly, then headed back to the beach and sat by Cody's fire. Thursday was Cody's 17th birthday so we counted down to midnight and Nick gave him 18 birthday punches before we all hugged Cody.

I had trouble sleeping that night. It poured for most of the night and then I was up at 4:45. I realized I couldn't get back to sleep. I looked out the window and it looked clear so I headed down to the beach at 5 with my camera and snapped away. It was so peaceful and I watched the fog over the water drift toward the beach, then back over the lake a few minutes later. I made it back to the trailer for a bit and slept until around 8. That's when an obnoxious bird woke Nick and me up. I saw other birds hanging out on the feeder so I put the zoom lens on my camera and took more shots. Nick and I watched the hummingbird do its thing and then six birds eventually got on one of the other feeders. After a bagel breakfast on the porch, we headed over to Cody's trailer at around 9 and got his grandmother's permission to wake him up. We slowly walked inside and then Nick woke him up violently. It was pretty fun. We took him out on my boat for a birthday morning boat ride down to the next cove and hung out there until it got warm enough to go swimming. I think we were out for almost two hours but somehow it felt more like twenty minutes. Then we hung out by the beach a lot with the kids. For dinner, Grandma had me call down to Luna Pizza in Chestertown, about 25 minutes away, so Nick and I went for a little ride around the lake. We brought the pizza back and it was very good. Then we hung out in the trailer chatting with my grandparents for a bit before hanging out in the boat at the dock. Nick played with my camera and it was a fun time. When the other kids got back from Saratoga (they saw a cover band for Cody's birthday), we proposed walking to the cemetery. Cody, Victoria and Abigail agreed to join Nick and me and I eventually talked Justin into coming, too. I think it was going to be the first time for everyone (except for me -- it was always a scary walk but fun as well). Justin ended up chickening out by the mailboxes, pretty much two minutes into the 25-minute walk there. Oh well. Abby let us know that she was pretty nervous so we put her in the middle of our five-person hand-holding chain. Those of us on the ends would be eaten first. We told some creepy stories along the way and pretended to hear some strange sounds... and sometimes we didn't even need to pretend. I'll admit to getting nervous but I knew it was all in my head and I had to be confident for my kids. Anyway, we made it there and I showed them the interesting points, like the graves for who I believe to be the stillborns from the late 1800s and my grandma's cousin's spot. Oh, and Cody gave me a good scare by going on the ground and suddenly grabbing my ankles from behind. So glad I didn't scream. We made it back about an hour later, then decided that we needed Johnny to tell us the tale of the Three Brothers as Cody made us a fire. We hung out there until a little past 1, then Nick and I called it a night (and I had to answer to Grandma again, who was worried, even though I checked in with her at midnight after the cemetery and told her where I'd be).

Friday was Nick's last day at the lake and it was a rainy mess. I think we played a second game of Monopoly and also a round of Othello before heading down to the beach to see what was up. Not much. We decided we'd leave for our 8:00 concert in Saratoga early and stop in Lake George, often the rainy day backup plan, along the way. Hard to believe that Nick had been going to Brant Lake since he was a baby and never once went to Lake George. We put in enough coins to park for an hour and checked out the shops. Nick bought a few things and we had a good time. Back on the road by 5:45, stopped at the Glens Falls Subway again for dinner, then drove into Saratoga Springs (Nick took lots and lots of pictures with my camera) and parked for $10. I wasn't allowed to bring my DSLR in so I brought I back to the car and just used my phone's camera. We met a guy who drove thre hours from New Jersey to see his 27th Rush concert. Wow. I got my "Brant Lake in the house!" text message on the projection screen before the concert.

Rush opened with "Spirit of the Radio" and mentioned something about the show going on for three hours. So that would be 11, then an hour south to drop Nick off at his mom's best friend's house in Kinderhook, then two hours back to Brant Lake... Getting in at 2... Plus I already had a terrible headache. I asked Nick if he could ask him mom if I could spend the night. She said that was fine and that was a relief. The rest of the concert was great and we headed up during the last song to beat the rush out. Nick declared it "the best concert I've ever seen." I really enjoyed it as well despite not even having Rush on my iPod until earlier that week. Our ears were ringing for the rest of the night.

We hopped in the car and drove down to Kinderhook, with my Rush CD continuing to be worn out. The end of the ride was very dark and Nick wanted me to use the high beams and that ended up being a good call. We pulled into Nick's mom's friend(Nick calls her his aunt)'s house at 12 and I hung out in the back for a bit with the parents before going back inside to chat with Nick and his "cousin" Christina, who was having a high school graduation party the next day. Christina has a Husky named Kiva and Nick's family has a German Shepard named Harley and a ten-week-old Pug named Brandy. I was rubbing my head to try to make the headache go away when Christina's mother Christine asked me to show her where my headache was. She then got behind me on the couch and started rubbing my head and neck. This is weird, I thought, but it feels good so I'll go along with this. "I'm actually allowed to do this," Christine said, who told me that she was actually a massage therapist. Then she did my back and it felt really good. I felt much more relaxed and my headache was almost gone. I kept asking questions about massage therapy and Christine answered them all. Very interesting stuff. She found some "knots" in my back and pressed on them to make them go away. Then she worked on Nick, who had a huge smile on the whole time. Nick and I slept on their big couch, probably getting to sleep at around 2.

I think I got up sometime before 8 and started helping Christine get set up for the graduation party in the backyard. There were a lot of heavy blocks that needed to be moved and I felt disgusting still wearing the same clothes I had worn the day before and slept in, the lack of sleep, the lack of a shower and the heat and the humidity outside. I felt like I had to earn my stay a little. Nick's mom made breakfast (bacon, eggs and a biscuit) and that was great. Then it was a little after 10 and time to say goodbye and head back to the lake.

Hanging out with Nick was really cool. I first met him three years ago when he was 12 and trying to catch a chipmunk near his trailer. Such a little kid. Then we sort of bonded over a week in the summer of 2008 when I was up there with just my grandparents and we met every morning at 10:30 to take the boat out and hung out all day and watched the stars at night. Then his parents sold his place and he didn't make it up last year. We were Facebooking/IMing and he mentioned that his parents were upset because he was doing so poorly in math. I ended up helping him out a little over AIM and the phone and he definitely improved before he stopped coming to me, then was kicked off the baseball team. But we still chatted and Nick called me from time to time to just chat. It's pretty cool when someone looks up to you. And after these three nights, I felt like Nick, who's nearly 16 now and much more mature, was my younger brother and we were just having a fun time hanging out. I was responsible for him, whether it was finding dinner on the way up, or on my boat, or making sure his couch was comfortable at night, or at the concert, or just making sure that he got back to his mom... It's just a cool feeling that I can't explain.

Nothing else too much of note happened at the lake. Bobby K took us tubing on Saturday and that was a great time. I went for the first time this year and got thrown off on the first ride (it's not worth tubing if you're going to stay on!) and hung on for the second ride. Took lots of pictures as usual. And just the usual hanging out with the kids and stuff.

Saturday night, Grandpa was making hamburgers and I was trying to make myself useful despite not being good in the kitchen (I mean, I can make cereal and peanut butter sandwiches -- not together). Grandma wanted a slice of onion on hers so I offered to cut it for her. Grandpa let me use his sharp nice. "Just don't cut yourself on it," he warned. I went to cut it, had some issues, did it sideways and... yup, I'm and idiot and cut my left pointer finger. The bleeding actually didn't stop for a few hours but I kept wrapping a paper towel around it and hid it from them. (Grandma looked slightly suspicious of me clutching a paper towel a few hours later but didn't say anything... Maybe I imagined it.) My lesson: Stick to cereal and peanut butter sandwiches.

The big accomplishment came Sunday. I was bored, feeling sleepy (sitting in the trailer does that) and even went to go take a nap on the couch. Then I decided to ask Grandma if she wanted to come down to the beach. She's not really good with her legs, always needing a walker or a wheelchair. I knew chances were very slim but it was later in the afternoon and it was cloudy so she wouldn't have to worry about sitting in the sun. She said no and told Grandpa to come with me. I kept asking nicely and she ended up saying yes. In the few seconds it took for me to run and get my shoes, she had already changed her mind. Oh well. Grandpa walked down with me and we enjoyed sitting at the beach. The sun even started to come out for us. I kept thinking how nice it would be for Grandma to get out and see and hear the kids playing and just overall be outside. I asked Grandpa if he thought I had a shot of getting her down. No way, he said. The challenge was on! I ran back up there, asked Grandma twice more and she finally said, "OK, since you asked so nicely." I helped slip on her socks and shoes, then turned my car around while she used to walked to get to the other side of the trailer. Then I helped her down the steps (which was actually easier than I expected) and helped back her into the passenger seat of my car, then drove her down. Success! And you know what? I think she enjoyed it. She definitely did. She was outside in the sun (but sitting in the shade) and watching the kids play on the beach and football behind us. The sound of kids playing is really nice, especially when you've been stuck inside a dark trailer for days. Oh, and no sooner did she get there than did people start coming over to her to say hello and catch up. "I didn't know you were up here," one said, because Grandma never gets outside! It was great knowing that I got Grandma to hang out by the beach for about an hour but even greater seeing her enjoy it. (I'm actually tearing up reliving this right now.)

I left the trailer just before 11:00 Monday morning, seriously close to crying, stopped for pizza and gas in Clifton Park, and pretty much disobeyed my GPS most of the way and got home right at 4:00.