SOAP!

Another mostly rainy day. A and I drove to the SunFeather Soap factory store in Parrishville this morning and discovered that a bag sale was in progress - $10 for a bag-full of soap - so we came away with 4 bags! Their marketing leaves something to be desired, since I got no notification of the sale. I even called a couple of weeks ago to ask if they were having a sale soon, and they said no. So this post is to help me remember to call them around the 4th of July next year to see if a sale is going on.

Another note, I need to remember not to use the GPS to get me to the soap store. It led us a merry chase over a couple of dirt roads. But that delayed our arrival enough that we saw this fox across the road from the store.

Kayaks and Wildlife

We had a great family paddle on the flow this afternoon. A and J managed quite well in the double kayak.A great blue heron flew right in front of the boats and we paddled very close to this large snapping turtle.

Trip to the Garnet Mines

AA&J arrived on Thursday, to very rainy weather. It finally let up a bit today so we went to Barton Mines to search for garnets. The site is a pit full of waterwith small garnets all over the ground to be picked up.There are large patches embedded in the surrounding rocks, but they are too fragile to dig out. A frog chorused us most of the time we were there, and we found large tadpoles in the water.Then driving home, what must have been a coyote crossed the road in front of us. Very cool.

A Damp Paddle from South Creek to Second Pond

We paddled with the Wayfarers today, despite the drizzle. We put in at South Creek and paddled into Middle Saranac Lake where we saw this eagle on Ship Island.They nest there, which explains why we've seen eagles there in the past.

We paddled down the Saranac River and through the locks, which were "manned" by Martha's friend Margaret,who invited us to stop for a stretch. Then we packed all 9 boats into the lockand headed downstream into Lower Saranac Lake. We climbed around on Bluff Island then finished at the boat dock on Second Pond where the cars were waiting.

Kayaking Lower Saranc Lake

We had a great day today. We started at the Lake Placid farmers' market where we got all sorts of goodies. On the drive there we saw the beautiful lupines lining the road.They are especially abundant this year. At the market we met Jini, who invited us to join them for dinner at Charlie's this evening. In between, we paddled on Lower Saranac Lake. We had lunch at one of our favorite spots, atop the rocky bluff on Bluff Island. We paddled among the picturesque islands. We saw lots of iris and some swamp laurel.And we stopped on Eagle Island, where we had never been. Campsite 1 is one of the few on the lake that has a decent landing spot and the view from the campsite was great. The woods behind were full of ferny rocks. When we got home after dinner, we were treated to this view of the flow.

Kayaking the Bog River Above the Falls

Since it was supposed to be windy today, we just did a short, mostly protected paddle. We'd always wanted to explore the Bog River upstream of the falls into Tupper Lake, even though you can only go 2 miles one-way before hitting the rapids. We found the put-in when we were exploring there over the winter, to the right of the falls in the picnic area. We paddled upstream to the spot where the outflow from Round Lake meets the Bog River. The Bog River rapids are right there, but we found we could go upstream a bit towards Round Lake, dodging big rocks that would make it even more difficult in lower water. We stopped at the point pictured here. On the way back we searched for the carry around the Bog River rapids, hoping we could get out and hike for a bit, but we found no trace of it.

No More UFO's

Un-Finished Objects in quilters' parlance. I finished my mini-quilt from George Siciliano's workshop. It's going to be gorgeous on our wood wall here at camp. I just have to figure out the best way to hang it.
And now I can start my next quilt.

Vermont Quilt Festival

I went to the Vermont Quilt Festival in Essex Junction today. I drove to Port Kent and took the ferry to Burlington, followed by a short drive to the festival. I left home at 8 this morning and returned at 6:30, so it was a long day, but worth it. The weather was very foggy this morning. Here is the ferry approaching through the mist.But it cleared and was a sunny 70 degrees most of the time I was in Vermont.

The quilt show was great. Good vendors (too good; I spent too much money) and neat quilts. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Back from NJ

We drove back to camp from New Jersey yesterday. We spent a week there:

• helping S with her porch - we made a lot of progress
• seeing A and family
• having a new AC system installed in the condo - sigh. It seems to work much better than the old one, which was the idea of course. So we should be able to go back there sometime in the summer without dying from the heat.

Kayaking to Upper Saranac Lake

Today we had a leisurely 8 mile paddle from the upper boat ramp on Follensby Clear Pond, through Spider Creek and Fish Creek Ponds into Fish Creek Bay, and then along the northwestern shore of Upper Saranac Lake into Little Square Bay and then back again. The winds were light and there were few other boats about.

We saw several loons on Follensby Clear.

I love the rocky shoreline of Upper Saranac Lake.