Camping in the Adirondack Mountains 2010

When it comes to going on vacation I usually like to relax and not rough it too much, mainly because I don’t see a point in paying so much money and you’re living worse than you do at home. Unfortunately today was a different story, my buddy Jerry and I decided we would take a trip up to the Adirondack Mountains up in New York and check out the wildlife. Anyone can tell you that you can’t check out any wildlife from a hotel room! You have to get up close and personal and actually live out of a tent! I’ve camped out a million and a half times before but never up north before so it was bound to be a new experience this time. The only fun of going up to the Adirondack Mountains is that we are from Florida, and there is almost nothing that one could even consider a hill, let alone a mountain. We already knew my front wheel drive car wasn’t going to make it up those slopes, and Jerry’s truck wasn’t large enough to carry all of our stuff so we had no other choice left than to rent a car. We went to Hertz and immediately decided the best vehicle that would fit our situation would be the Nissan Xterra which was a large 5 passenger SUV with 4WD so we had more than enough room and more than enough power to make it up those steep inclines on the mountains.

We drove our new rental back to our houses so we could load up with all the camping gear we could think of and then we were on our ways. We left Orlando and were in such a rush to get to Georgia, we figured that if we were going to drive for such a long distance we didn’t even want to make the shortest of pit stops in the same state! So we ended up in Georgia in record time, once we got there we were so surprised at how well this SUV did on gas, for a vehicle as large as it was and loaded up as it was, we barley used a full tank for that entire trip! We made it up to Savanna, Georgia and we spent the night. At first I though we were going to be like normal people and get a hotel but then Jerry insisted that since we had all our camping gear ready we could just go to a local campgrounds and put all our gear to use. Well even though it was no 5-star hotel, it was a lot cheaper and we didn’t have to go through all the hassle when checking in and out of a hotel. We woke up early in the morning and rushed our way up to South Carolina, the best thing about traveling with Jerry is that we never have to stop for food.

He always rides strapped with a bunch of food for our long journeys so not only did we save a lot of money on our trip we saved a lot of time as well, for the next few hours I fell asleep because I didn’t get the greatest 8 hours of sleep in the tent because it was so cold and the ground wasn’t as comfortable as a mattress. The next thing I knew I woke up and I was surrounded by snow capped mountains and we were among the Adirondacks, The one and only thing that I worry about while in the mountains is snakes but from reading a bunch of articles online I learned that around this time of year they are the least things you have to worry about because the weather is way too cold for them. The first animal that we saw was an Adirondack Mountain Lion, now I always thought that these things roamed free in these parts but boy was I wrong. Jerry was so excited when he saw it he stopped the SUV took a few pictures as it was running off and sent it to all his buddies. Apparently it’s a really big deal to find these creatures in the wild and with our luck it was the first one that we’ve seen!

We got to a small town and filled up our gas tank and told them about the sighting and an old man added a dot to his map, I guess he was interested in mapping the reported sighting spots, there was a lot less than I would have imagined for someone to see year round. We finally got to our campsite and even though we’re supposed to be living life on the edge and roughing it out a little a nearby RV offers Wi-Fi and if its free then I’m not complaining!