Go Dacks

Every year I look forward to spending time in the Adirondack Mountains. My grandparents had a house in Big Moose, near Old Forge, so I grew up going there multiple times a year. Now that I am an adult, Rob and I love to go and hike, bike, run and swim in Lake Placid and surrounding towns. Most of those exercises he loves to do and I love to hang out and read and relax. As you probably already know Rob is a triathlete and the idea of racing the Lake Placid Ironman is something he has been considering for a long time. This year we decided to "borrow" my parents RV and camp in Wilmington, volunteer at Ironman and spend the greater part of the week relaxing and having fun.

Before we left last Saturday we were dealing with a small, singular (hopefully) mole problem that you may have read about here. Well to up date you on the story, Mr. Mole exited our apartment by way of mouse trap thanks to the fantastic maintenance workers of our apartment complex. I guess it had been captured while we were at work and when the workers came to check things out, they were nice enough to remove it for us. They even cleaned up the chalk outline.

Too bad it was really a mole, or this would be even funnier. 

Once the mole was taken care of we were able to pack and prepare for our getaway. But you can be sure I had Rob get my suitcase out of the closet for me. We left for the Adirondacks at 6am last Saturday, and because Molly had signed up to volunteer also, she followed en route to my parents house in Cicero. Since my parents were nice enough to let us borrow the RV, but not trustworthy enough to let us drive their baby, they drove the RV and towed their vehicle while Molly and I followed in hot (code word for: super slow) pursuit. Actually I just don't feel comfortable driving it and they kindly offered to drive and set-up/tear down. I also joke about the speed but my Dad has this RV driving thing down, and he even got a compliment, while we were stopped at a McDonalds, from a complete stranger who had been following him. Nice, but creepy gesture. I love our drive up North because it is like visiting an old friend who you haven't seen in a year. We have a comfortable routine of places we stop and like to see what is new in the area. Overall from Fairport the drive is about 5 hours. 1.5 to my parents house, 1 hour to Watertown and 2.5 hours through small towns and back roads.

My parents have been to Placid during Ironman weekend and have talked about it for the last five years. We couldn't wait to get there and feel the electricity. Originally we were going up to volunteer so Rob could sign up for next year. Due to the fact that it sells out quickly (3-4 minutes for 2014) the best way to ensure a spot is to volunteer and then you are allowed to jump the line on Monday morning. Well Rob had to go and ruin everything when he proposed in January, so the timing and especially the money (over $600 bucks) wasn't going to work for now. We still wanted to go and experience it and I would recommend it to everyone, whether you are a fan of the sport or not. Once we passed Saranac Lake, which is the last major town before Placid, we started spotting cyclists and runners, everywhere!!   Once we got into Placid there were beautiful, athletic people crawling like ants. We go to Placid every year and I have never seen it with so many people walking the streets. We had to drive by all of the festivities, tents and transition area on our way to Wilmington and there was so much to look at it was hard to drive. From Placid to Wilmington the main route you drive is the route for the bike course. We saw hundreds of cyclists and we couldn't believe that so many people were riding the course the day before the race. We realized later that the majority of them were not people who would be participating the next day. Our caravan pulled into the KOA and I raced in ahead of Mom so I could pay, because I knew she would insist that they pay. Our site was located in the front row, near the office and we had camped at or near the same spot last year. Mom and Dad started setting everything up and we unloaded our stuff and learned the ways of the RV. Me the inside and Rob any business pertaining to the bathroom and plumbing.

After we were settled we all grabbed lunch together and then Molly, Rob and I went back to Placid so Rob could visit one of his favorite bike stores and Molly could visit with a friend who was competing the next day. We also got our plans in order for what time we had to get up and where we had to be for volunteering on race morning. We said our goodbyes to Mom and Dad, who got a hotel room for one night and hit the hay early since our alarms were set for 3:15am. Ugh!

Volunteering Recap Coming Soon!