This essay will consider four different aspects of my little get away from Albany to the Lake George / Wakponomie Campout that I went on last May. First I will look at the speed of the Northway and all it passes, then the experience and excitement of Lake George at night, rural freedom of the park and drug deals, and finally some observations on rural Washington County.

Escaping Albany: The Northway

There is a lot of New York State beyond Albany and it's surrounding county. That thought is easy to forget, as we rarely leave our immediate world—and we do we tend to view the outside world with mistique if not indifference. There are so many different places, so many different people, and so many different areas—yet so many of them remain largely unexplored and untouched at least for myself.

The first thing I observed during my exploration was travel up the Northway. When they say you see virtually nothing along interstate highways, but dotted lanes, cars, and pavement, they are right. Moving along at 70 MPH means you have to give your full attention to driving, and little to enjoying the scenery. Admitly, you can see some farms, backs of houses in suburbs, and deep in the Adirondacks, some beautiful wilderness, but for the most part the Northway is about emptyness and getting to your destination quickly.

That said, the Northway is amazing in how fast it can make miles melt away. At 70 MPH, it takes only about 51 seconds to go a mile. Driving along, time can quickly disappear along with the miles you have traveled. You can cross a lot of New York in little time. While I haven't ridden in airplanes in a very long time, I would suspect that the experience is very similiar on them: you spend a few hours on the plane, and your transported to a very different world.

Observations of Lake George at Night

The world of Queensbury and Lake George is not all that different from Albany County, NY, but it is noticably different. Things have a different feel, and people are slightly different. You are in the Adirondack Park, and there are tourists and more non-locals around exploring this area—indeed you are a foriegn invader of sorts. When you enter this foriegn area, you bring many of your folkways, ideas, and money, and you inevitably change the people who live around there.

One of the activities I attended up there was viewing the fireworks at Lake George and walking around the strip up there. Lake George is clearly a tourist destination, with all kinds of little shops dotting the road, including an arcade. When I first arrived there at 9 PM, there were many different people walking around, mulling for some place to go. You could say it was a rather exciting place, full of color. Certainly, when you went in the arcade it seemed like a rather fun place.

Walking up Mainstreet seemed equally nice. While many places had already closed up, there was still some buzz around the area. The bright color of the street seemed everywhere, as were the cars driving up and down the street. My camera died, so I couldn't get any pictures, but the 'urban' beauty and the excitement of the whole area was great. I am not sure if I could exist in such an environment constantly, although I certianly enjoy being a observant and casual participant of that environment.

Hogstown Drug Dealers

It is not surpising that the state wild forest on the other side of the lake from Lake George is prime area for careless kids and drug dealers, but it still says something about the use and abuse of rural freedom. The ranger at the Boy Scout Camp went into great details about these people and the malace they bring to the whole area. To keep it simple, I will note that the woods gives perfect protection for such illegal activity to exist, but it is also destroyed by such activity.

I know that Hogstown is not special or particularly different from other areas around, but it shows that even a beautiful place can be abused. This is story is probably not significantly different from blight of Meth Labs springing up in rural farming communities of Western New York, creating toxic waste and headaches for farmers, but it shows that few areas are prestine and free of the evils of the crime and corruption of our big cities.

Experiencing Washington County

Washington County is in the Lake Champlain flood valley, and it's surpising how fast it becomes flat, after heading a few miles west of Queensbury and Camp Wakopomine. You are in the mountains, and then your not, but instead in a totally different kind of area. There are many small towns that you pass, often seperated by a great distance, along with many different kinds of farms that you would expect in such a flat area.

This area is so open and with so many small hills and fertile valleys, that it allows the mind to almost run free. It is uniquely different from the Schoharie Valley, as it is not limited to a narrow pass. Towns spring up along roads that wind back and forth through fields of green that make up the rich agrian base of the area as it now is.

Conclusions

There is a lot of New York for me to explore—it's a big place. There are many notions of the world yet to see, to consider and to ponder. The answers are not always clear or conscise, but must be considered as part of a larger understanding of the world around us as it exists today.