Rush on the Lake
I hadnt been up to Lake George since I was a kid. Over the summer, I drove the folks up there to visit a few relatives with houses in the backwoods of the Adirondacks and for a much-needed weekend vacation.
After dinner with the aunts and uncles and dropping the parents off at the hotel, I took the Northway back to the Village of Lake George, a place that held such special memories for me when I was a child. Amusement parks, the steamboat Minnehaha, all those trees and mountainsit still looked more or less like the watercolor painting my memory had fashioned it into. Still, its strange to visit a place you havent been to since you were a child. Your childhood memories didnt have bars, but as I found out this summer, the picturesque Village of Lake George is littered with places to get drunk.
It was Labor Day weekend, but I still managed to find a place to park. I followed the sound of a live band to a bar on the lake with a large outdoor patio. The band was a goofy bunch of dudes who stuck to coversSublime and other things youd hear in a dorm room. But there were a few surprises: James Laid, though a popular tune, was an odd choice and perhaps a bit out of context considering the crowd.
Women danced on the floor. Creepy men (yeah, me too) watched around the perimeter. The band announced that theyd play one more song before taking a break, and then busted into the biggest surprise of all, a Rush cover.
Theres no faster way to kill a party than playing Rush. The long instrument intro barely reached its full prog-y magnificence before the dancing women dispersed to the patio. I found myself getting closer to the stage, and with two whiskeys sloshing securely in my belly, began swaying to the indecipherable time signatures. In my reverie, I hardly noticed that the floor was now empty, except for myself and three other of the bars most nerdy male inhabitants.
It wasnt a total loss. On my walk back to the car, after a stroll alone around the dark lake, a car full of women shouted Hey! Sexy! at me as they sped past. I dont care if they were sarcastic or not. I gave them a thumbs up and felt like a boss.
I hadnt been up to Lake George since I was a kid. Over the summer, I drove the folks up there to visit a few relatives with houses in the backwoods of the Adirondacks and for a much-needed weekend vacation.
After dinner with the aunts and uncles and dropping the parents off at the hotel, I took the Northway back to the Village of Lake George, a place that held such special memories for me when I was a child. Amusement parks, the steamboat Minnehaha, all those trees and mountainsit still looked more or less like the watercolor painting my memory had fashioned it into. Still, its strange to visit a place you havent been to since you were a child. Your childhood memories didnt have bars, but as I found out this summer, the picturesque Village of Lake George is littered with places to get drunk.
It was Labor Day weekend, but I still managed to find a place to park. I followed the sound of a live band to a bar on the lake with a large outdoor patio. The band was a goofy bunch of dudes who stuck to coversSublime and other things youd hear in a dorm room. But there were a few surprises: James Laid, though a popular tune, was an odd choice and perhaps a bit out of context considering the crowd.
Women danced on the floor. Creepy men (yeah, me too) watched around the perimeter. The band announced that theyd play one more song before taking a break, and then busted into the biggest surprise of all, a Rush cover.
Theres no faster way to kill a party than playing Rush. The long instrument intro barely reached its full prog-y magnificence before the dancing women dispersed to the patio. I found myself getting closer to the stage, and with two whiskeys sloshing securely in my belly, began swaying to the indecipherable time signatures. In my reverie, I hardly noticed that the floor was now empty, except for myself and three other of the bars most nerdy male inhabitants.
It wasnt a total loss. On my walk back to the car, after a stroll alone around the dark lake, a car full of women shouted Hey! Sexy! at me as they sped past. I dont care if they were sarcastic or not. I gave them a thumbs up and felt like a boss.