Our North Country Honeymoon, Part I: Saratoga Springs,

This post is long overdue, I know, but this blogging business is time-consuming. I feel obligated to be witty or engaging, but, hey, sometimes I just don't feel like it, especially when I'm having one of those days where work just sucks the life out of me.
Where to begin? We left Florida back in late May under drizzling rainy skies, driving to Tampa, a 2-hour drive. to catch an early morning flight to our honeymoon destination: New York's Adirondack Mountains. We flew into Albany, and rented a car for the drive north. I learned from a fellow native New Yorker at work recently that referring to this part of NY as "Upstate" is, actually, incorrect. Upstate New York is the far northwestern region of the state, around Buffalo. Where we honeymooned is correctly referred to as "the North Country." I stand corrected. Judging from the number of "Snowmobile Crossing" signs we saw there, I can understand why.

We arrived in Albany at around midday, and had just a 2-hour drive ahead of us to reach our honeymoon locale, so we decided to take a detour off the Interstate and explore Saratoga Springs, NY. We ate lunch at a local diner, then wandered around the downtown area, where we explored a very European-looking public park


with a very old carousel,


the kind that has hand-carved wooden horses.


Saratoga Springs is a very picturesque town. We visited the local history museum,

which featured displays of photos, period furnishings,


and even dresses worn by some of the wealthy ladies who were among Saratoga Springs' seasonal residents during its heyday.
One of the beautiful vintage dresses that featured incredibly elaborate and detailed hand-beading:

and a closeup of the bead work on the dress bodice, with genuine turquoise beads:


Saratoga Springs is a geologic wonder, situated over numerous mineral water springs many of which are naturally carbonated. We sampled water from the various springs that are all over town and open to the public.
One such spring, Hathorn Spring:




We did as advised by a local, and each drank only a very tiny plastic cupful of the metallic-salty water from the spigot. It was not completely awful, but I feared some sort of laxative/purgative effect, as alluded to by said local. I had in mind visions of the colonoscopy preps that my patients must endure, at my behest (for their benefit, of course). Luckily, there was no such outcome, probably due to taking such a minuscule dose.




We spent our Honeymoon in beautiful North River, NY at rustic Garnet Hill Lodge. On the way to North River, we stopped along a scenic overlook beside one of the many lakes in the region for this photo of my beloved and me:




The lodge, being between "seasons" ("ski season" and "summer") was completely empty, except for us. Yes, we had the ENTIRE lodge to ourselves, at least for the first 2 days or so. We even (at least I did) peaked into each any every one of the unoccupied guest rooms to compare our accommodations. Nah...ours was best. After a few days, some weekend guests arrived (losers!). In the meantime, we OWNED the pool table...oh, yeah!