Road Trips and Hike Reports

It is and has been snowy around Poughkeepsie.  This was going to be a challenging hike since it was long and has sizable elevation gain.  It ended up being one of the most challenging hikes we've ever done. I chose this trail because it was a bit closer than my original plan, Minnewaska State park which we visited once before.  Also, somebody had commented on Alltrails that this hike was fine in the snow 'if you followed somebody else's tracks'.  We had a bagel at Bagel World then continued down US-9 South to the park. Even the entry trail was tough..  The snow had apparently thawed and frozen so there were deep foot prints that bottomed out in solid ice and then little tall islands of very hard crusty snow. During the entry trail it was totally possible to step on even the smallest tall snowy spots because they were rock hard.  Once we branched off onto the first 'real' trail, it had been traveled somewhat so there were areas with a narrow compacted snow path

 The giant snow storm didn't really come together as intensely as was predicted. It did snow about 5 inches but it was only snowing overnight and by the time I looked out even a 5 or 6 am it was all done.  The parking lot of the hotel had been plowed at some point but was still pretty deep in snow so clearing the car was a bit of process but nothing absurd.  We headed out in by 8 am and the drive East on NY-3 etc was very sedate and easy.    We had lunch in Oswego (on the shore of Lake Ontario) at a Spanish/seafood restaurant called La Parrilla .  Brian had Chicarrones and I had a tomato clam soup and we shared a Caesar salad.  Everything was wonderful including the staff. When we sat down we were the only customers in the whole place which is great for our COVID sensibilities. We also each had a piece of cake after lunch and both the chocolate and the vanilla cake were delicious and home made by the owner's mother. It was an indulgent nice way to finish our drive up. After sta

 We took off from the house about 9 am Sunday and headed East on NY-96, NY-318 and NY-31 until we got to suburban Syracuse for a bagel at Bagelicious .  It was just an ok bagel but the toppings, people and price were all good enough that we'd go back if we were in the area again. The drive was about 250 miles in total and we didn't use the freeways or tollway except for a comically brief half a mile near Syracuse.  Just like the last time we passed through Adirondack state park (on the way home from Vermont once) it was ridiculously sparsely traveled during these off season winter days.     When we got to Saranac Lake our hotel room wasn't ready to check in despite it being after 3 pm and clearly chaos was reigning with the front desk and housekeeping.  We took that as a sign that a very early dinner was the right idea since, after the bagel, we'd had very little to eat all day.  The first place we tried to eat at was an Italian restaurant called Little Italy downtown. 

 It was just a quick after work hike but it was snowy and peaceful and helps us meet our goals.