Dejeuner sur l’herbe

Goodness me, some French and we’re not even in Canada yet!

The lakes here in the Adirondack region are beautiful and there are some gorgeous mansions along the shores.  The trouble is, these lakefront properties with their lush gardens make getting down to the lake for plebs like us very difficult indeed.

It was a beautiful day, not too hot but warm enough to enjoy being out of doors. We stopped by a deli and put a picnic together, hoping to find a spot by the water where there was peace enough to sit and read but with perhaps, a bit of boaty action.

After a long drive and a few false dawns, we found a tiny little place by the Raquette River.  If the three of us sat in a particular formation, there was room to all sit down at the same time!

With the car carpets as picnic rugs and our deli picnic, we aspired to a kind of relaxed atmosphere the title suggests.

But Mary advised us about the perils of the US wild countryside: poison ivy and poison oak, doing a quick recce to check that we’d be ok.  Had we thought of such things ourselves?  Never.

I sat down regardless, only to be spooked by a small frog which had been sitting nearby until this rather larger creature decided to share his space.  I am not good with jumpy things and became rather jumpy myself as a result.

The three of us sat in this tiny spot and ate our picnic in a mild state of anxiety.  Relaxed we were not.

We ate our sandwiches and moved right along!

There was pretty countryside to drive through and eventually, a few public picnic tables by Saranac Lake, very close to the deli where we’d started our route this morning.  We sat and read, watching families returning from a day out on the lake get their boats out of the water and load them onto the enormous trailers for the journey home.

We returned to Lake Placid ourselves as the skies darkened and another thunderstorm appeared imminent.

We’re heading over the border into Canada today and looking forward to a few days in Quebec.

A bientot!