66 miles

I left Golden Beach and rode to Indian Lake, where I stopped for a coffee at a gas station. The man working there told me he’d just moved there in May to open the store. He used to be a contractor in California. He was baking cookies, so I bought one fresh out of the oven. He gave me a scoop of ice for my Hydro pack and told me it was the best water in the Adirondacks. Lucky me. 

I ran into some construction on Highway 28—they were paving it, and there was a huge descent on the freshest of pavement. It was SCARY fast, and so smooth. My route followed the Hudson River for a while, and I thought about how it flows to the Atlantic. I read some signs about the history of logging and industry in the region. I rode to a small town just north of Lake George and bought the smallest ice cream cone ever. I paid $3.25 for it, and it was literally like a teaspoon of ice cream. It was the first of many disappointments…

Lake George, it turns out, is a bustling cesspool of tourism. It’s a busy resort town. I found myself suddenly surrounded by hundreds of people dining and shopping and I was not at all mentally prepared for it. I tried to get a meal at a brewery, but I arrived to find they had a 2-hour wait. I wanted to just sit somewhere quietly. I found a barbecue place another half mile down the road that looked like it had a healthy bowl of spinach and quinoa on their menu online, which sounded perfect. I arrived to find that they didn’t have it, so I settled for a burger, which I was inflamed to discover was literally just a patty and a piece of cheese on a bun with no toppings at all. What even IS a burger without pickles? It was cooked just fine, but severely underwhelming and overpriced. 

I discovered a campground was only a 2 minute ride away, between the south end of the lake and the A&W. Given the flavor of the town, I knew it would be less than my favorite, but it seemed like the only option in range. I set up my hammock. A few minutes later, there were about 20 children with glow sticks marching through my campsite from an adjacent area, with a few adults too. A dog in the RV next door started barking. Someone started their generator and someone else yelled at them. A ship on the lake began blowing its foghorn. I was attempting to use the filthy bathrooms when the fireworks began. Late into the night, a nearby light across from my site was shining super brightly, directly into my hammock. It kept turning off and back on again for no apparent reason. 

It was easily the worst campground experience of this entire trip. I felt great about dodging the exorbitant entrance fee.