So, needless to say, I booked a place for us. However, I was a little bit skeptical. Something you may not know about me. I'm kinda snobby when it comes to places to stay...I don't do "motels" or anywhere the doors are accessible from the outside. John and I stayed in a DUMPY HoJo years ago when we were dating and it scarred me for life. Unfortunately, there were only "motels" in the Whiteface area and any major chain hotels were either in the Lake Placid or Saranac Lake area, which were going to be a 30 minute drive to the mountain, plus much more expensive. I looked at my very few options in Whiteface, and the only place that was reasonable was a place called the Mountain Brook Lodge, which was, in fact, a "motel." The funny thing was though, that every place I could find that had reviews for it gave it 5 stars. It didn't look dumpy from the outside, and the rooms looked ok (had that Adirondack look i.e. all wood paneling in the rooms). Everyone's reviews said the owners were great and they had a comfortable stay, blah, blah, blah. For $89 a night and not forcing us to stay for 2 nights (most places up that way have a 2 night minimum stay during peak seasons and weekends) and not to mention a 5 minute drive from where John needed to be this morning, I said screw it, and booked it.
The joke all they way up yesterday was how it was going to be the Bates Motel and I was going to hate every second of staying. And can I say what an AMAZING weather day Saturday was?? Low to mid 70s, sunny...PERFECT!! We got there around 4 and as soon as we pulled up, I wasn't afraid at all. It looked cute and very non-scary for a motel, and I hate to even call it a motel because it really wasn't. I know you all know that motels usually LOOK like motels. They just have that scary and run down look to them. This place did not! It's just a guy and his wife who own it and are the nicest people on the planet. The know everyone's names who are staying with them and will do anything you need to make you feel at home. The town it's in is super tiny so they could give you recommendations on where to go and anything else you needed. It was just so out of the ordinary from any major hotel, I imagine it's more like a bed and breakfast than a motel.
We had dinner over in Lake Placid Saturday night at a place called Generations. It was so good! We had a fruit and cheese platter as an appetizer and I had a grilled chicken sandwich for dinner that had roasted red pepper, pesto, and cheese on it, while John had ravioli. After dinner we just walked around town since it wasn't overcrowded, which was nice for it being a Saturday night in Placid. After that, we went back to Whiteface, walked to a whippy dip around the corner for a malt, and then came back to watch some tv before bed. The weather was just so nice and everywhere wasn't busy so it was just really enjoyable to be out.
5am came bright and early this morning and there was no sleeping in for me. Once he's up and milling around and we're in the same room, it's up for me too. 6:30am rolled around and we were able to walk not even .2 miles to pick up his packet and number, and then turn right around and walk back to our place so I could eat breakfast at 7 before he wanted to wait at the start at 7:30.
I left around 7:45 to drive up to the top of the mountain and wait. The race started at 8 and John arrived at the top around 9:25. He managed to come in 26th out of 120something runners with a time of 1:21:and some seconds. And would you know that after that 8% grade, 8 mile uphill run, he ran back down to the hotel? Yup. The man is crazy. So I drove 8 Canadians down.
There was a guy and his wife that I heard talking about thumbing a ride down as they walked past the truck before I left and offered to take them. They were so happy! So on our way down the mountain we picked up 4 more people who were thumbing, so they piled in the bed. And then another mile later, 2 other people we saw, we asked if they wanted a ride, and they too, piled in the bed. We passed John around mile 5 and I asked if he was sure he didn't want a ride since we had one seat left in the cab. He said no, so we drove on. I dropped everyone off at the bottom of the mountain at the start line and was happy that I could contribute something to these people. It's a courtesy that a lot of people adopt when there are mountain races like this. Since it's one way up, if you don't have someone at the top waiting to take you down, you either run back down or pray someone will be kind enough to drive you down.
After John got back to the hotel he showered and then we went back to Lake Placid for brunch, and then to a place called High Falls Gorge. I wanted to go last year when he ran the Lake Placid marathon, but the day we got there it was raining so we didn't go. It was so much scarier than I thought it would be, well, the trail that is. The "hard" path was closed due to damage they incurred during spring flooding which they were showing video of it in the gift shop which I guess is what originally scared me. But then once we saw where that trail was, I was kinda glad it was closed. It's literally jutting out from the cliff on some wood and steel. SCARY!!
It was a great weekend...best we've had together in long time and I'm so happy we had such a nice time. Yay!
1 comment:
This just sounded FUN!
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