On the road again! - travel is not just about destination

Here is a post loaded with positive impressions, one I needed to write for myself and I owe to an old friend.

Trying to avoid Independence Day's fireworks (that's one thing that makes me weak, fireworks!) we visited the city of Montreal - a suggestion given by more than one friend of ours.

We used the perfect combination of not being able to cross the US border after July 31st and having at least five weeks of appointments we can't miss  and were there in perfect coincidence with the Jazz Festival, a life-time dream!!!

When I left I had the blues, so it was also a kind of soul vacation; not a relaxing one altogether, spending two full days in the car, torturing the kids with long walks, late night concerts, warm weather...but one after which you come back with new energies and new stories.

Let's start with day one.

There are the kids, requesting the three Cs (cookie, cracker, cheerios - pleeaase).

Obviously the requests were never fully satisfied all time, so we had to take some stops.

Our first and most enjoyable was at the Taghkanic Lake State Park, located on the Takonic Parkway, which goes basically from Bronx way up to Canada through the State of New York.

We had a picnic lunch by the emptier side of the lake and moved later to the busiest side.

It was a peaceful place, very calm and extraordinary.We are already thinking about spending a weekend there sometime.

Our second stop was in Chestertown, a little old (beautiful) ghost town with a nice diner and  ice-cream parlor loaded with antiques and curios and which upper floor hosts a gift shop. Adirondacks' Maple syrup was the main theme, so if you love the stuff, that's the place. (And finally you can learn the difference between a real maple syrup and a fake one).

Being there in the late afternoon, we didn't have a real meal, but it all  smelled delicious!

Eventually we passed the border, after 8pm.

The sky offered the most beautiful landscape.

I realize that pictures - especially if taken from the car at 50 mph - aren't  good in conveying these feelings of taking the distance, leaving a place you somehow love to get distraction, organizing ideas, trying to separate and disassemble the thoughts that so often stick together as if they had been knotted. Well, that's how it feels when you get kicked in the flashbacks of your mind, and how it is when the different levels of perception (the heart, body and mind) sometime fight and yell at each other.

 A huge sunset

the messengers of a god talking indigo words, 

an invisible hand turning the light off

 and the city of Montreal with its jazz-revelation

Of course there was music in the car; I always find the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be perfect for travel, but there is a song I always have to listen when we have to ride for such long trips "Run Around" by Blues Traveler.

to be continued...