ladyofthethread | What I did during my summer vacation... (Reply)

Or should I call it “LakeCon” since I even cosplayed while on vacation? XD;

Instead of being at Otakon this year, I was at home packing for a family vacation. We drove upstate to Lake George in the Adirondacks on the 19th and spent a week at a townhouse on the lake. We used to vacation up there a lot when I was younger but the last time we were there was 2002 and we’d only gone on one family vacation since then. Between the cosplay and the fireworks, I think this was possibly our most memorable trip up there so far!

Highlights:
-Doing a Gankutsuou photoshoot outside the castle *_*
-Going around the USA and the world… in mini golf form! ^_^
-Hearing a BOOM on the last night and walking out on the terrace to find there was a fireworks display right outside our house! We assumed some rich guy arranged it for the fancy party being held at the castle. Our vacation literally ended with a bang! :-D

Sunday
My family left the house around 11 and arrived at Lake George around mid-afternoon. Settled into the townhouse and walked around the property. We’d stayed there for vacation in 2001 but some more houses had been built since then.

The living room had a fireplace but, of course, it got no use since it was July. :-P There was also a full kitchen, a dining area, and a laundry room on the first floor.

I shared this room on the second floor with my sister and yes, my costumes are hanging in the wardrobe. XD; The house had lots of closet space so my normal clothes were elsewhere.

The larger bedroom included a Jacuzzi. The glass doors lead out to a terrace overlooking the lake.

The view from the terrace. It was usually pretty quiet since we were about a mile outside of the village.

There was a terrace outside the living room, too.

Sightseeing cruises are popular on the lake and this steamboat would pass by several times a day. The whistle was so loud it could be heard from the other side of the lake!

Views from the small private beach and docks

We also saw a flock of seagulls.

This was up the hill from the townhouses. And my brother is taking a pic of it, too. :-D

Although the area is rather tacky and touristy now, it used to be popular among the wealthy in the late 1800s and early 1900s and many built summer homes along the lake. Sun Castle is one of the remaining mansions from the “Millionaire’s Row” of that era. It’s now an inn run by the same people we rented our townhouse from. The patio and back section seen in the first pic are modern additions.

Monday
Walked around the village a bit and bought postcards. A few places were closed down or replaced by new stores but there was still a lot familiar even though we hadn’t visited for 7 years. Still lots of motels, restaurants, gift shops, and amusement places along the main street.

This candy shop from previous vacations was still around. I got a very gooey but yummy caramel apple there. ^_^ Hadn’t eaten one in years.

We went back to the house around mid-afternoon and I changed into my Eugenie costume so we could do a photoshoot outside the castle. We took pics for about 2 hours and there were very few people around so no one really bothered us although some at the inn did see us. When we were almost done, a woman came out to check on us since someone had told her there were people who had been taking pictures outside for quite a while. ^_^;; But she left us alone after checking that we were staying at the resort. And she liked my Eugenie hat! Pics will be posted after my brother’s done with them.

Evening was spent writing postcards and handsewing on a cherry blossom pouch.

Tuesday
It would always take a long time for everyone to get ready to go out in the mornings. (We rarely got out of the house before 11; it was worse than at a con! :-P) So, I liked to sit outside on the terrace and sew after I had breakfast and got dressed.

Tuesday started out gray and it rained most of the day so the only thing we really got done was some shopping. (There’s a whole bunch of factory outlets a couple of miles south of the lake.) We went back to the house late afternoon and everyone was just sitting around so I decided to fill up the Jacuzzi and soak in it for a while. I’d only used the Jacuzzi once the last time we stayed there and forgotten how noisy it was. My siblings heard it from downstairs and thought it sounded like a jet ski! XD; That also turned out to be the only use I got out of the new bathing suit I’d bought for the trip. >_>

With all of the clouds and fog that evening, it kind of looked like smoke was coming out of the mountains.

Wednesday
Weather was a bit better although still cloudy. We went into the village near where the sightseeing ships dock.

Across the street from the docks is my favorite mini golf place. We played the “Around the U.S.” themed course and unfortunately, got rained on a bit. Normally, I’m not that great at mini golf and with trying to hold an umbrella at the same time, you can probably guess how things went. ^_^;

This orange for Florida was as tall as my father!

A giant Maine lobster

The Nevada hole had a roulette wheel and dice.

Liberty Bell for Pennsylvania

The Kentucky Derby themed hole

Back to NYC already? :-P The last hole was set up like a subway station. Anyone else notice the goof the designers made? It was kind of obvious to me since the real stop was down the street from my high school.

There’s a second course with an “Around the World” theme that I would have liked to play but no one else wanted to. (We usually do both.) So, I just walked around and took pictures of it.

Maybe, the painters tried drinking out of this thing since the paint job looks a bit messy and incomplete. :-P

They seem to associate Canada with giant lumberjacks. o_o

A huge sombrero

And a tiny Taj Mahal

Since the weather forecast was so lousy last week, I threw a coin down the well in the background and wished for no more rain that week. Didn’t quite work but at least we didn’t get anymore days of nonstop rain. :-P

The weather started clearing afterwards. Here’s the view from the south end of the lake. It’s over 30 miles long from north to south. And my brother is taking pictures again.

The mass transit in the area is in the form of trolleys.

After lunch, we drove up Prospect Mountain.

Higher…

And Higher…

At the top. The summit is over 2,000 feet and you’re supposed to be able to see for 100 miles if the weather cooperates.

We ate out for dinner and went to play in the arcades for a while that night. They seemed kind of boring these days since a lot of the newer games were just things with no point other than winning tickets to trade for stuffed animals and other prizes. :-/

Mostly, I just played with older favorites like pinball machines and the shooting gallery in the back of one of the arcades. Normally, I’m not into shooting type games but this particular one amuses me. There’s a scene set up with lots of targets that cause things to happen when hit. One of the most elaborate ones was a cowboy popping out of a barrel and complaining about people shooting at him. XD And there was one that made an old fashioned sewing machine run! Of course, that was the first one I tried to hit. :-D There were others that made a box of dynamite open and light up, a piano play, a monkey dance, bells ring, and lots of other stuff.

Thursday
It wasn’t supposed to rain until Thursday afternoon so I wanted to try to get Ayame and Count D photos. I figured it would make more sense to do them then since my brother takes so long to wake up and get ready in the morning that I could do my makeup and change into costume (which also tends to take a long time) so we’d both be ready at the same time. It didn’t work out so well though since he took forever to get up that morning and I ended up sitting around in full Ayame costume waiting for him. -_-

Once we finally got going, we took some pictures by the lake since it was Ayame’s costume from the manga chapter where they went to the lake for Golden Week. Weren’t many people around but as we were finishing up outside, the steamboat was almost ready to pass by again. Ran back to the house since I didn’t want to be that much of a tourist attraction. XD; Changed into D’s vacation outfit while my parents went out to order takeout for lunch. Unfortunately, we really only got some pictures of it out on the terrace since my parents got back with food and it started to rain. Disappointed we never got to do shots out near the water with that one. :-/

Walked around outside after the rain stopped and finally remembered to take a pic of the house from the outside. We were in the left half of the building on the right.

An Adironduck :-D There were also chipmunks around the property but the one time I had my camera, it ran away before I could get a decent picture.

There’s usually a parasail or two being towed around the lake when the weather is okay.

This looks a bit small for dinner…

We didn’t pack any fishing poles so my father just bought supplies and wrapped fishing line around an empty juice boxes and added sinkers, floaters, and hooks. XD; You can actually catch fish like that though. We got a whole bunch of small fish but the tiny ones got tossed back into the lake.

Thursday is supposed to be the night for the weekly fireworks over the lake but it turned out we couldn’t see them from our house. Oh, well. It’s usually just a few anyway and that’s what it sounded like.

Friday
We went to Saratoga Springs because my brother wanted to visit a music shop there. (He’s into records and that was the only shop up there that still carried vinyl.) The only needlework shop in the area was also nearby so I decided to check it out. It was mainly a yarn shop but I did pick up a few cross stitch patterns. Hadn’t really visited a cross stitch shop since the last time we were in the Adirondacks.

I also looked through some of the stores around there. This shop where I bought postcards also had some pretty ridiculous hats, like that red feather-covered one. :-P Other than hats and regular souvenir type stuff, they also sold costume accessories, toys, stationary, and art supplies. It was a weird mix. o_O

And, of course, Saratoga meant horses. We saw several statues around town.

Reminds me of the Cow Parade we had around NYC years ago.

The bluish parts on this one were cut up strips from Pepsi boxes.

After lunch, we walked through Congress Park.

There was a huge flock of ducks. A lot more than in this picture!

The war memorial

You can’t tell that well but this is the carousel in the park. I rode it for 50 cents although my siblings were making fun of me for being too old for it. :-P

On the way back to Lake George, my parents stopped for more outlet shopping. Unfortunately, I had a headache after we got back to the house and got sick that night. -_- I was fine the next morning though.

Saturday
We tried fishing again in the morning but it was too windy. The waves kept quickly knocking our lines back to the docks and we only got tiny fish that were tossed back. This flock of geese didn’t seem to mind the waves though!

We had to go back to the outlets since the salesperson forgot to remove the security tag on one of the shirts my parents bought the day before. Since we were there, I bought some fragrance stuff at the Yankee Candle outlet to try out in my sewing room. My sewing room is in the basement and with all the rain lately, it gets musty at times.

We kept passing this ice cream stand during the week (it’s actually a few miles south of the lake, near a Six Flags theme park) and thought the sign was pretty silly. What does a chicken have to do with ice cream? :-P

We wandered around the village some more that afternoon and bought souvenirs since it was the last day.

An idea for what to do with failed banks? :-P

Some of the silly signs being sold in one of the souvenir shops.

There was a bakery on a side street. They probably had the most elegant window displays in the whole village.

We got back to the house to find that there was something going on at the castle. Lots of extra cars and people on the patio in nice clothes so we assumed someone had booked the place for a wedding or some other fancy party.

A sailboat out on the lake during the last evening. I saw the sightseeing boats, motor boats, and rowboats pretty often but there rarely seemed to be sailboats.

We cooked our own dinner and figured we would work on packing that night. Unexpectedly, around 9:30, we heard fireworks and walked out onto the terrace to find they were being set off over the lake, practically in front of our house! :-D I tried to take pictures but my camera was too slow and I switched to video instead. It was a pleasant surprise to end our vacation!

Sunday
Left around 11 and after stopping for lunch and hitting traffic at a few points, made it home around 5. Ridiculously, I walked out into the backyard for a few minutes and got half a dozen bug bites although I only got one during the whole week on vacation. It seems our back yard is more dangerous than the Adirondacks! :-P

And here's the last part of the fireworks display for those of you who like explosions. :-P

I wasn’t really interested in getting a YouTube account but I couldn’t get the embedding code for Photobucket to work even though the video uploaded fine there. >_>