Brian's Travel & Photo Blog

While Lake Placid is a typical destination for us, we have never been there during the early Spring. We decided to make the trip up this time of year with the intention of some triathlon training and fly-fishing. I always use the excuse that I don’t fly-fish as much as I used to since I have been married, so Denise said that she wants to learn how so that we are both able to do this together. Our base camp is located right on the West Branch of the Ausable River and River Road which is the heartbeat of all endurance-related training in the area, so we will be perfectly located for our intended pursuits.

The ride up went pretty smooth. We took the Honda Fit in an effort to save some gas. The Fit worked well, but wasn’t quite as efficient as it usually it with the extra load of gear, two road bikes on the roof, and the increase in elevation. We stopped in Albany, NY at one of our favorite Thai restaurants, Blue Spice Thai. The last time up they had closed the doors on their previously location across the street which we didn’t realize until we pulled up to the door. Fortunately this time they were open. The food was still quite good, but the less than accommodating waitress left a bad taste in our mouths. Despite that we still ordered several orders to-go for eating in during the week.

While driving through Keene, NY we noticed that the former natural grocery store had reopened as the Green Point Foods so we made a U-bee and checked it out. A young couple from Brooklyn had just moved up here and opened up. They were a little sparse right now, but were gearing up to have fresh soup, sandwiches, and baked goods. If you are going through the area, it may be a good place to stop by and enjoy lunch on the nice deck our front.

Upon arrival to our “base camp”, we were greeted by our friendliest of hosts, Dan & Wendy. After catching up for a few minutes, we unpacked, settled in and enjoyed our Thai take-away dinner. After dinner, we set out for a short walk along the river to discuss the weeks plan of activities, then off to bed for a good night sleep.

Sunday, May 16th 2010

Sunday morning we got up at decent hour and off to our favorite breakfast place Chair 6. A party of 12 had beaten us to this tiny place, but we patiently waited since we were on vacation and not in any huge rush. Anyway, it is always worth the wait. Denise had her Salmon omlette and I had sourdough French Toast. Yum! After breakfast we headed to Jones Outfitter’s Fly Shop for licenses and the latest scuttlebutt on the fishing in the area. The river was still cool and  most activity was still sub-surface, so I loaded up on some nymphs and streamers and we were on our way. I headed out for my first road ride of the trip. I made my way down River Rd to Rt. 73, then up and back on Rt. 86 to Wilmington, NY and back. The ride up to Wilmington was a nice downhill grade, but the road was bit rough. The way back the same road was exactly opposite on both accounts.

After returning from my bike ride, we headed down to the Iron Bridge on River Rd. for Denise’s first fly-casting lessons. She got the jist of things despite my ability to break things down to basics. No fish were caught, but that was not really the goal of this outing. An older gentlemen below us had yanked some large trout out on a spin real and some garden worms. He gave me a bunch but I kept losing them trying to false-cast then out to the fish. There were some large fish sitting under the bridge, but it was a deep slow pool and hard to get a fly down to them in order to tempt them. We decided to head home, clean-up, and head over to Desparado’s for some Irish-Mexican for dinner. “Despy’s” were a bit crowded so we opted for Caribbean Cowboy instead. The Cowboy is really good, but they had jacked up their prices a few years ago so we tend to limit our visits there. We got a few looks from the other couples dining there when we entered. Not sure if it was our extra-casual appearance or if it was our obnoxious Flyers garb. I had the Jerk Chicken platter which is always great and Denise had a Salmon special which was good, but didn’t “knock her socks off.” A couple LP IPA’s topped off this culinary delight. Post-dinner we bolted home to catch the Flyers first playoff game versus the Canadiens on CBC. Flyers did not disappoint. Flyers 6, Habs 0…Sweet!

Stay tuned for the rest of the weeks adventures…