Greetings from Lake Placid, NY!

[dhgeyer]

Hi Everyone!

I saw a run of no rain, and no unbearable cold or heat for ten days straight in the forecast. I mowed the lawn, loaded the Beemer, kissed the wife, and took off Friday morning. It's only 253 miles to Lake Placid, NY, and I've been meaning to get up here again. I was here in the Spring of 2009 before the tourist season got going, and wanted to see it when it was in the full swing. So I rode up yesterday, just hanging out today, and head back tomorrow. Not a major trip, but a beautiful ride.

What a great gem of a resort village this is! Unfortunately I didn't think to bring the adapter to unload pics to the hotel computer, so the photos will have to wait till I get back. No card slots on the hotel computers - I checked. The village sits on Mirror Lake, one of those small gems of a lake that are all over the beautiful Adirondack region. Lots and lots of cool shops, the 1980 Winter Olympic arena, tons of places to eat, wall to wall tourists, which is kind of nice. I got a great price on a beautiful room with a view of the village and the lake for two nights. My room even has a porch to take in the view! I'm having a great time!

Oh, and I rented a Segway again this morning. You can do that here. This time no tour - no ducks in a row - just me and the gadget for an hour. I went exploring around the lake and all over the village, and had a better chance to "see what she'd do" unconstrained by supervision. I must say Segways are a blast!

[alanmcorcoran]

Sounds like a good day. Looking forward to the pics. I also had a rainfree ride of similar distance today. A little warm, but not too bad.

[Water Warrior 2]

A spur of the moment trip is the best in my opinion. When opportunity knocks be sure to open the door and accept what is offered. Looking forward to pics and comments.

[alanmcorcoran]

You convinced me to try the Segway, dork factor be damned. In Chicago they apparently can't rent to you solo (or so they claim) but I'm going to do a two hour tour of Places I've Already Been To at 1:30 today. I can't wait to don my dweeby orange vest and my geek-certified yellow plastic helmet!

[alantf]

No card slots on the hotel computers - I checked.

Did they have a printer? You'll often find card slots on those. :2tup:

[alanmcorcoran]

Few shots of my Segway "experience"

[alanmcorcoran]

...

[dhgeyer]

I had a wonderful ride back today. I took all 2 lanes except for a short stretch of Rt. 4 from Rt. 22A to Rt. 7 in Rutland VT (about 16 miles). I took a route that involved a lot of roads I've never been on before. The weather was a bit cool when I started at 8:00 this morning, but warmed up quickly. Clear as a bell all day, and very beautiful country with great motorcycle roads. Only fly in the ointment was that it got over 90 degrees here by the time I got home. Thank Heaven for mesh! Lake Placid was still in the low 80's - perfect. I was tempted to just stay up there another day or two.

I made it home in 6 1/2 hours, with several stops. Not sure how I did that, except the route was a little more direct - shaved about 30 miles off. I even made it back in time for the ice cream social that my wife's women's group was putting on at one of the town parks here.

All in all, one of my better mini tours. I'll have some great memories.

http://s2.postimage.org/xl2f0.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Tsxl2f0)
A view of Mirror Lake from the balcony of my motel room.


http://s2.postimage.org/xlhcS.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=TsxlhcS)
The main drag of Lake Placid, also shot from my balcony.

http://s2.postimage.org/xlBa0.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=TsxlBa0)
Mirror Lake from the terrace dining area where I had lunch. Literally shot from where I was sitting.

[dhgeyer]

http://s2.postimage.org/xmPur.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=TsxmPur)
A little park in the middle of Lake Placid, on the lake. That's a bandstand on the right. Later that evening there was a jazz ensemble playing, and a lot of people gathered.


http://s2.postimage.org/xoaii.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Tsxoaii)
Main drag, complete with shoppers.


http://s2.postimage.org/xocNr.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=TsxocNr)
One of the shops had this rubber band Gatling Gun on display. It'll shoot 300 rubber bands in 30 seconds, and actually works like a Gatling Gun, with the "barrels" rotating and shooting in sequence. Takes about half an hour to load it. Quite a piece of work. And they only wanted $800.00 for it!

[dhgeyer]

http://s2.postimage.org/xoVH0.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=TsxoVH0)
A view from Rt. 86 just up the hill from the main drag. What a beautiful little village!


http://s2.postimage.org/xoLIr.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=TsxoLIr)
Chalk up another Harley Davidson store that doesn't sell motorcycles. Must be a heck of a market for that stuff!

http://s3.postimage.org/7kXeJ.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pq7kXeJ)
A scene, actually I don't remember where this was. In NY State somewhere on the way back earlier today. Rt. 9N maybe?

[dhgeyer]

http://s3.postimage.org/7lqar.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pq7lqar)
Ideal Garage. This and the last one in the previous post must be in NY, because the ferry shots are later.


http://s3.postimage.org/7lsFA.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pq7lsFA)
Ferry across Lake Champlain from New York to Vermont. I was going to take the ferry at Ticonderoga for 5 bucks, but I saw signs that a bridge was out, and they were substituting free ferry rides 24/7 every 15 minutes from Crown Point. This was a very short ferry ride - 5 to 10 minutes tops. If you look at a map, Lake Champlain gets very narrow down toward the southern end.

[alanmcorcoran]

Good shots and looks like a great trip. Now that I think back on my Ithaca days, I'm remembering - there's a lot of great motorcycle roads in upstate New York! Especially in and around the Finger Lakes. Segway was fun - did your feet get a little numb after an hour?

[dhgeyer]

Good shots and looks like a great trip. Now that I think back on my Ithaca days, I'm remembering - there's a lot of great motorcycle roads in upstate New York! Especially in and around the Finger Lakes. Segway was fun - did your feet get a little numb after an hour?

They did when we did the tour in Manchester. Both Sue and I noticed it. Actually, our feet weren't numb. They were sore on the bottoms. Our calf muscles were sore also. But they kept us on the machines for an hour and a half plus the training session, with only one short break. This time, renting the one in LP, I got on and off quite a few times - parking it to take pictures and whatnot, and I didn't have any numbness or soreness at all.

Glad you enjoyed the Segway.

There are a lot of fantastic motorcycle roads all over NY State, but I think my favorite area is still the Adirondacks. The southern tier where you were isn't bad either. I grew up in East Aurora (near Buffalo) and went to school at Alfred, in the southern tier of western NY, which is really the northern most reach of Appalachia. Great MC roads in that area as well.

[UH40]

Alan -

That Segway looks like alot of fun! I have always wanted to try one... Great pics

- UH40

[alanmcorcoran]

One last Segway shot near a Chicago classic (sorry for yet another hijack dh...)

[dhgeyer]

One last Segway shot near a Chicago classic (sorry for yet another hijack dh...)

Anyone reading this forum would think every one of us has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or ADHD. :whistle:

[alanmcorcoran]

Or Need Too Much Attention Disorder. Still your trip looked like a blast. I gotta pick better destinations, better routes or both.

[Water Warrior 2]

DH, Alan, great pics and comments. My ride today wasn't near as much fun. Got a fat lip from a large something flying around(faceshield open)and found a cloud full of gigantic rain drops.
Tried the new improved windshield for my camera, something isn't right so it's back to the drawing board. Something changed in my mounting method that wasn't anticipated.

[dhgeyer]

DH, Alan, great pics and comments. My ride today wasn't near as much fun. Got a fat lip from a large something flying around(faceshield open)and found a cloud full of gigantic rain drops.
Tried the new improved windshield for my camera, something isn't right so it's back to the drawing board. Something changed in my mounting method that wasn't anticipated.

Like that old guy out in Scipio, Utah told me: "Sometimes you get chicken, sometimes feathers.". Hope things work out better today. You'll get the camera mounting squared away in short order, I'm sure.

[alanmcorcoran]

Speaking of camera mounting, has anyone ever seen a true "point and shoot" camera? (or maybe a mini-mount?) By that I mean you hold it like a 9mm aim at your subject and click off a photo with a trigger using your index finger? Most cameras seem to be built for two handed operation. If there was a true point and shoot (aside from possibly being shot by someone who mistook your camera for an actual SigSauer) I think it would be a lot easier to take pictures with ones left hand while riding. (I often rest my left hand on my lap when doing highway/high gear hammering anyway. But I've concluded that fumbling with the camera at speed with gloves on and the little tiny buttons and looking away from the road is a likely recipe for a stupid and possibly fatal whoopshit.)

[dhgeyer]

I think you'd have to fabricate it yourself. Many years ago, a friend of mine, who was intensely into bird photography, had an actual small telescope rigged to his 35mm camera. He had a lot of trouble holding it steady. So he rigged up a rifle-like stock to hold it, with a cable release modified and fitted to a trigger. It worked very well for him. No reason you couldn't build such a rig, pistol flavor, for a small digital camera. The only catch is that they don't have threaded holes for cable releases anymore, so you'd need one with a remote, or you'd have to rig something to trigger the shutter release. I've never seen anything like what you describe, so I'm pretty sure you'd have to build it.

Just don't aim it at any cops, gang bangers, or militia types.

[alanmcorcoran]

I've seen various helmet cams or helmet mounts. In addition to looking pricey and having tiny lenses, I couldn't tell exactly how you fire off the picture. They might be mostly for video which I haven't really bothered with much as yet. A tongue or tooth fired shutter would allow you to maintain two hands on the bars, but I'm guessing that's too weird for even gadget freaks.

[Water Warrior 2]

I have actually taken pics holding a camera but it isn't the safest way to ride. I did have an open tank bag for the camera but in any emergency I would have just dropped it to fend for itself. A camera mounted on the bike has to be isolated from vibration and anything airborne. Neither one of my 2 EL Cheapo digitals is meant for service on a bike with the Fuji A180 being the only one capable of actually doing a video with any clarity.
The one thing to keep in mind is you really need gloves that allow a large degree of tactile feel for your fingers. Without that all bets are off for any moving photography. Luckily I have a pair of Red Wing gauntlets that are my favorite because of that and the comfort factor is the best to date.