Lake George Swim

I really will make this one quick this time! As a birthday present to myself I signed up for a 2.5 km open water swim in Lake George. We stayed close by on Friday night, ate lots of pasta at the pre swim dinner and headed down to the beach at Hague for the swim early (~6.45) on Saturday morning.

Oh yeah and this was the first real outing with the new SLR camera I got for my birthday!!

Representing!

It was chilly in the morning but clear blue skies and it actually made the 72F water feel warmer. After a brief delay, I head in to the water, lined up (it was a standing water start) and we were off!

Getting in for the first time

The start - I'm in there somewhere

Headed out - can't complain about the view!

The water felt ok and there were about 60 people in the race so it started a little rough, but nothing I can't handle. After a few minutes I had some space - I thought I was near the front but wasn't quite sure. I felt good so I just tried to keep a constant speed and not get too off course. On the way out there were only 2 buoys and the turn around so I know I headed a bit off course a couple of times, but nothing too bad. I closed in on one person at the turnaround and had them in my sight on the way back but couldn't quite reach them! The way back felt ok for the most part, felt tired in the middle but powered through and got some energy back to pick it up at the end. The finish was on land so I just kept swimming until I practically beached myself (that's what it felt like anyway) and then stood up and sprinted. I knew someone was behind me so didn't want to get overtaken on land!

Finishing strong!

Apparently Matt didn't think I would be done so soon but he did get some pictures of my finish. As I put my timer in the container I saw that there were only a few in there - I must have done better than I thought. I finished in 42.44, which was faster than my goal time of 50 and my ultimate goal time of 45 minutes! I was happy with that!

Happy after finishing

It turned out I finished 8th overall and 4th female. I missed 3rd my 30 seconds - could I have caught her if I'd pushed harder I though to myself - maybe but I'm still happy with my swim. I came 1st in the 30-34 age group so got a nice water bottle as a prize.

Award ceremony

After hanging around at the beach for a while - it was a beautiful hot sunny day at this point - and watching the 10 and 5km finishers we headed out homewards with a couple of stops along Lake George. 

Lake George

Lake George and us

It was only my 2nd open water swim but I enjoyed it a lot and hope to do more it the future!

Hanging out in Bolton's Landing

Saratoga Polo

In the summer (I realise it's now October) I got tickets to a polo game in Saratoga. The first time we went the game got cancelled due to rain but we were fortunate that they switched our tickets to the big game the next weekend. The tickets were in the clubhouse area, center field with a bar and food service - if we were doing the polo thing we were doing it in style!

Ready for some horse polo fun

We got there early to enjoy the pre-game and I was very excited to see Pimms on the cocktail menu - so delicious on a beautiful summer afternoon/evening. I wasn't sure about the the rules of polo or what it would be like but it was a lot of fun. A good mix of people in the clubhouse side, with cars tailgating on the other side of the field.

Start of the game right by our seats

The game itself was more exciting than I thought it would be. It was fast and the commentary was really helpful in figuring out what was happening. I would have been very puzzled if they hadn't told us that they switch ends after each goal! The horses are so fast and athletic it was impressive when the action got up close to us because we were only a few feet from the edge of the field.

Polo action

The game was close, within one goal the whole time until the end (I think it was 9-7 or something at the end). After the game they did a big presentation of the trophy and all the players got to drink champagne from the cup. They even brought out the horse of the game to the presentation zone! The players all mingled with the spectators after the presentation which was quite nice, all very fun and inclusive. 

Presentation time

Crazy funny guy on the winning team

I would definitely go again next year!

Polo patrons

Ithaca, NY

I'm so behind so I'm going to make these next few blogs quick and easy. In mid-July I entered a swim meet in Ithaca (in the Finger Lake region of central upstate New York). I decided it was a good excuse to go on a trip to wine country!

The swim meet itself was a long course meet, so it was in an Olympic length pool which is 50m long. It is very different swimming a long course meet to a short course meet (25 yards or 25 meters) like my last meet in April but I wanted to give it a go. I estimated my times based on what I swam in April with a little buffer. Master's swimmers in NY apparently don't swim long course very often so the times swam were often quite different to the entry times. This meet was much bigger than the last one, as long course meets are few and far between up here (just like the UK I suppose)! I swam the same events as last time... 50, 100, 200 Back and 50 Fly. I did better than I thought - my entry times were about right but it felt a lot harder than last time. I managed to win my age group in all the backstroke events and came second in the fly. It was a beautiful almost brand new pool too so all in all, a good morning of swimming even if it was hard!

I won some blue ribbons!

After swimming we headed on the Cayuga wine trail and stopped at a couple of wineries for some tasting and some buying. It was getting late so we only made it to two, followed by some delicious locally made ice cream. Yum! Dinner was in downtown Ithaca, which is a really lovely place, but we were once again disappointed by a Mexican restaurant in NY. There must be good ones somewhere right??

Anyway, we camped by the lake on Saturday night and got up bright an early for a hike around Taughannock Falls State Park (where we camped). We started out at an overlook by the falls, which was a great view on a beautiful morning. We then hiked all around the rim of the gorge that the falls had carved out, followed by walking up in the gorge to the base of the falls and then back up to the overlook. It was a nice, fairly easy stroll and so pretty. We didn't see many people until we walked the flat path to the base of the falls so it was even better.

Taughannock Falls from above

Cayuga Lake

Can't complain about another great waterfall!

Taughannock Falls from the bottom

Then it was back to Albany for a brief rest before work on Monday.

At the falls

Visiting Colorado

I was attending a workshop in Boulder, Colorado at the beginning of July and I took the opportunity to visit Fort Collins the weekend before the workshop. I got to stay with my friend who still lives there - thanks Rachel and Ben - and visit for the first time since I left in 2007!

Friday consisted of flying into Denver, driving up to FoCo, grocery store, cooking delicious lentil tacos and chocolate breakfast buns and eating yummy ice cream.

Saturday was a little more adventurous. I had to spend some time outside so we went for a little hike with the dog up to Horsetooth reservoir - the location of my one and only open water swim (until last week) of 2.4 miles in 2007. We walked past the CSU football stadium (which I never went to) to begin. It was hot that weekend (in the 90s) but there was a nice breeze so it was quite pleasant. The lack of humidity was also  great!

CSU's Hughes Stadium (if it's still called that)

 Past the stadium and up to the reservoir. There was a great view of Fort Collins and my former department from up here, but I didn't get any good pictures.

Horsetooth Reservoir

 After heading back down we went for lunch in old town where I had a great sandwich (brie, caramelized onions, arugula and blueberry jam), salad and lemonade at 415 (which is new since I lived there). This was followed by a couple of beers at Equinox brewery in old town (also new since I moved away). It was great to hang out, eat good food, drink good beer and watch people for the afternoon.

Can't be in Colorado without visiting a brewery

 The evening we cooked again - veggie bean burgers that were also delicious, and relaxed. It was off to drop me off in Boulder in the morning. We headed down early, met up with some friends and had brunch at the Chautauqua Dining Hall. More delicious food for me! A quick stroll around the park for some quick pictures before taking a drive up into the mountains a little more.

Me, Rachel and the Flatirons

 We took a loop up into the mountains, no idea where we went exactly but it was just nice for me to watch the scenery. You really miss it when you aren't living in it all the time. My pictures out of a moving car weren't the best, but you get the idea.

Colorado

After getting back to Boulder I got dropped off at the University of Colorado where my workshop was. It was a really beneficial workshop and I'm very glad I got to go - I learnt a lot, had fun and got to see some friends I hadn't seen for a while. I also had to stay in a shared dorm room. I'm so glad we had single rooms when I was a fresher at uni (in American that's a freshman in college ;-) )! It was fine, but it would have been much better if I had a) a step stool to get on and off the bed, and b) a fitted sheet for the plastic mattress!

Oh American dorm rooms...

I <3 NY, but I sure do miss Colorado!

Camping in Vermont and Lye Brook Falls

In June we went camping in Vermont for the first time. We chose Emerald Lake Campground which is between Manchester and Rutland in the beautiful Green Mountains. We headed up Friday night, set up camp and enjoyed some delicious tofu dogs on the campfire.

We started early on Saturday and drove down to Manchester for a hike to Lay Brook Falls. The trail head was just out of town and there was only one other car. It was a nice straightforward 2.3 mile hike to the falls, so 4.6 mile round trip. Matt enjoyed searching for mushrooms, of which there were plenty.

Reishi's... he makes tea out of them

The trail has been was interrupted by quite a large landslide, which looked fairly recent.

Glad we didn't get hit by this

Not long after the landslide we reached the falls. We spent a while there which was very enjoyable to be all alone with such a lovely waterfall to watch. Really quite impressive.

Matt...

... and Ellie

We headed back to the car and went into Manchester for lunch. We found a Thai place and had a very delicious and really cheap lunch. There was no shopping allowed though (Manchester has a large number of outlets with no sales tax)!

The afternoon was spent at Emerald Lake itself, just a short mile-ish hike down from the camp area. It was a nice sunny afternoon so there were a few people at the "beach" but it wasn't too bad, especially out in the water.

Emerald Lake from the beach

The view from in the Lake

We went for a swim out and around the island. On the back was a large rope swing which Matt had to try...

Action shot

It was fun to watch but I was happy in the water.

No action shot!

After a swim back to the beach, and some time drying off in the sun we hiked back up to camp and set about making dinner - pizzas on the grill! So so good. I may have dropped the first one in the fire, but luckily I divided the dough in half so we had a second pizza and more tofu dogs. We drove back to Albany on Sunday. A great weekend in the fresh Vermont air and water.

Happy Vermont Weekend!

Cruise: Sea Days and Home

I don't have a lot of pictures of the last couple of sea days and arrival into New York, so this will be a short one. We spent time relaxing on deck but for some reason we never went in any of the pools, I'm not sure why - probably because they were so busy. We did go on the water slide though :-)

We ate lots of good food, drank lots of good drink and took part in some activities. Mainly trivia and we had two victories! One on super trivia and I won turbo trivia where you are asked questions individually in a circle. I got lucky on my questions - geography and British royalty! I won because I knew where the Sea of Tranquility was!!

Elegant Night number 2

We also went to a couple of shows on the last days. A game show one that was amusing, a couples game show which was extremely hilarious and the Carnival Legends show which is like Stars in Your Eyes (for my Brit readers). The people they got to sing were generally excellent, it was entertaining and the theatre was packed.

At the back of the ship watching the wake and enjoying a drink

Do I have to get off?

We arrived back in NY early and I wish I had actually got up and watched the sunrise and see the skyline that morning. But alas, we didn't. We had some room service and went for the self assist debarkation. We thought that the time we were given for debarkation might have made us miss the train if it took a long time for a taxi so we were some of the first off the ship (carrying our own bags which was no big deal). As we got off I was directed to the non citizen immigration line and for once in my life, this was the quick line!! I was in and out pretty fast, despite the immigration official forgetting what to do with my type of visa. I had to wait for Matt to come out for about 10 minutes and it was really hot in the terminal.

We got in a taxi really quickly and were back at Penn Station with plenty of time to spare, we even switched our tickets to an earlier train. A quick 2.5 hour train trip home and back to reality. A great vacation was had and I enjoyed my first cruise. Would I cruise again? Yes, but I doubt it would be my first choice - so many other places to go and see!

Cheesy portrait and trivia champion goodies!!

Cruise: Nassau

There is going to be a lot of pictures in this post so I'll try to keep the ramblings to a minimum. Up early this morning to light rain and an early (8am) docking at Nassau. People were once again waiting to get off the ship until the sun came out but we headed off early with no rain but grey skies.

I had found a walking tour of Nassau so we followed that, starting in Rawson Square right outside the ship terminal with statues and pictures of all the Bahamian presidents. Across the street was Parliament square and the government buildings. It was nice to look around when it was almost tourist free!

Bahama's parliament with Queen Victoria

 Behind the government buildings was the library. We didn't go in early as it was shut but we went in later in the day. It was full of cool old books but it was a tight squeeze to move around and very very hot. I'm not sure how all the school kids in there could work!

The library

After the library we headed on a little walk up past the hospital to the Queen's staircase - a narrow little gorge with steps carved out of the stone. It was full of tropical plants and giant trees growing on the edge of vertical stone walls.

Queen's staircase at the end

Up the stairs and to the top of the hill to Fort Fincastle, built in 1793. We were able to pay a couple of dollars and go inside the fort to look at the inside and the cannons (which were never used). There was also a nice view back down to the ship.

Carnival Splendor

Fort Fincastle

At this point it had started to rain a little but we also saw some other people from the ship, so we weren't the only crazy people! We walked past the post office and some nice little churches before getting to the Governors residence. They like pink buildings here!

Governor's House 

At this point it really really started to rain and we ended up sheltering under a bridge for a while. I'm not sure why I remembered to bring an umbrella on the cruise but I'm glad I did. It was even the blue, black and gold colours of the Bahamas!

Just like home

Once the rain subsided a little we ended up at Graycliff, a large colonial mansion which is now a hotel with a cigar factory and a chocolate company. We strolled around the grounds a little, which were beautiful and got a tour of the cigar factory. It was a little strange standing and watching all the people making the cigars by hand but quite interesting none the less. We also stopped at the chocolate shop and got a box of beautiful chocolates that we saved till we got home (white chocolate passion fruit, nutella and sea salt caramel were the best).

Cigar anyone?

You want this one?

We then took a detour from the official walking tour as there was a new rum distillery in town. We got a tour (which didn't consist of much) and then of course had to try some of the product. Yum! We even got a trip behind the bar :-)

Rum, rum everywhere

Including here!

We then wandered back down to the main town, walked along a couple of beaches and through the shopping area. Apparently a lot of people do a lot of shopping here, which we weren't really interested in. It had been a busy morning so we stopped for lunch at a little cafe. I got the conch salad, which was more like a ceviche and it was amazing. Really delicious and a lot nicer than the conch fritters from Grand Turk!

So, so good and just a little spicy!

After some more wandering around the town and into a few shops (to buy rum cake and hot sauce) we headed back to the ship. It was rammed in the town as another Carnival ship (the Pride) had docked. The schedule showed that sometimes they have 6 ships there at a time and I can't imagine how crazy it would be then! We spent a couple of hours up on the top of the ship as the sun was almost out. There was also a great view of Atlantis from the ship. We could have gone there but it was very expensive. A lot of people had excursions there at the water park and were quite upset about the rain! Maybe we'll get there sometime!

Atlantis

As we headed out and back to sea it had started to get rainy and windy again but I still enjoyed the view. We also saw a turtle swimming by the boat (I had seen a dolphin the day before)!

Lighthouse and Atlantis at sail away

That evening was probably the most unsettled on the ship, in terms of motion. It wasn't bothering me much (although I could notice it) but a lot of people weren't feeling so good, including Matt so it was an early night. Not sure if anyone used the sick bags by the elevators! I did enjoy being greeted by this guy  in the cabin though.

Monkey towel

A nice day of culture to make a change from the beach! Two more sea days to get back to New York.

Happy times on the boat!