Travels With Stu

The village’s origin rests within in its name. The “former great sheep district” of Muttontown, in northern Oyster Bay Town in Long Island, traces its name to the early English and Dutch settlers of the mid-1600s who found its rolling hills ideal for sheep grazing. These sheep provided the Dutch settlers with mutton and wool.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, wealthy families from New York City built large homes and mansions in Muttontown during the Gold Coast fever. Some of these magnificent examples include Knollwood, a 60-room Greek Revival, Italian Renaissance and Spanish styling mansion erected by Wall Street tycoon Charles Hudson in 1906 with towering Ionic columns at its entrance. The current Woodcrest Club and the Muttontown Golf and Country Club are two other remnants from its Gold Coast past.

After World War II, Muttontown, a village of 6.1 square miles, underwent a significant population growth from 382 people in 1950 to 3,499 in 2003. This small enclave in Nassau County attracted a certain type of person – the wealthy. With a median household income of $184,386, ($140,000 higher than the national median) the wealthy of New York have found an alternative settlement other than Manhattan.

Whether sheep herding and extreme wealth have any direct connection, I cannot honestly comment on, but I can tell you that growing up in the town of Muttontown makes a New Yorker feel as close to New York City as a North Dakotan may feel about their proximity to New York City. Living atop Hardy Hill in our grey painted house, with dark blue roof shingles and a darkened red door literally made me feel as if I lived on top of the world, but stuck in the middle of nowhere. As I would gaze down on my neighbors, town and practically everyone else around me as a kid, I would wonder if there was more to life than the grass fields, the large houses, and Route 106, the road that connected us to the towns of Syosset, Jericho and the rest of the world. Was there anything else more enjoyable for a young boy other than grass fields to run around with his friends, play catch with his brother and dad, and find escapes from his mom after setting a prank on his younger sister? Life was one game after another, whether I was running off to soccer practice, getting ready for a baseball game, or training for my next cross-country race. My house and neighborhood provided every opportunity necessary to stretch my legs, improve my throwing arm and golf swing, and even allow me to become a decent basketball player.

Exiting the neighborhood through its windy roads and undulating bends, you are distracted from the traffic of 106, but can see in the near distance an entrance to a completely different environment, a forest. Soft dirt paths lead walkers, horses and riders into the 550-acre Muttontown Preserve that is open to the public. Part of the Preserve used to be Hudson’s Knollwood estate, before King Zog I of Albania bought it in 1951. Zog never resided in Muttontown, and sold it a few years later in 1955 to Landsell Christie, who made a fortune mining ore in Liberia, and destroyed Hudson’s mansion in 1959 after the house experienced extensive vandalism. In the past 40 years, the county has purchased about 430 acres from Christie for the preserve. I have frequented its running trails during my returns from the city, avoiding hundreds of piles of horseshit as opposed to the masses of people I have to maneuver through when running in the city.

The thirty mile drive my family and I would take monthly to Manhattan solidified in my mind the huge separation from my home and the world’s largest city, which was essentially next door geographically. Driving down Fifth Avenue or through Central Park seemed dirty and dark, confusing and nauseating, as I never looked forward to spending too much time in what many have called, “the world’s greatest city.” Cabs flew by us screeching their horns, and masses of people seemed to be in a rush to go everywhere but where they were, as life in the city seemed too hectic, and no one seemed to take a breath to look around. I never imagined living in the loud, chaotic, Manhattan or New York City would be the ideal life for a young man. But here I am in midtown east Manhattan, looking out of my mom’s apartment on the 25^th floor gazing down on the miniscule cabs, and pedestrians that shuffle around with somewhere to go, but never satisfied from where they’re coming from; as I wonder which life is more worthwhile for a New Yorker, and also wondering how much my life has changed from my Long Island days atop Hardy Hill. Is the prestige, power and size that is associated with Manhattan really what makes New York so special, or does the calm, clean-aired, rolling green hills of Muttontown create a sense of calm that is worth more than any high rise, studio apartment or loft?

Perhaps there are benefits to both my past and present neighborhoods, but I will always be proud to acknowledge my Long Island roots, and defend the grass fields, dirt trails and dense woods that I grew up in and helped mold me into the person I have become today.

I woke up after a surprisingly restful night’s sleep and packed my belongings before a quick shower and checked out of the hostel. I hadn’t truly experienced Lake Placid proper in my mind because it had been so cold the night before, so I made my way downtown and headed for the Olympic Center. I parked my car and headed into the Center where I was free to walk around at my own leisure, which I did for about 30 minutes and wasn’t that impressed by the facilities. I headed back to my car and since I had already seen downtown I had to come up with other activities to keep me busy, so I made my way to the ice skating rink located near downtown. I parked my car headed to the ticket booth, but saw that the rink didn’t open until 1 in the afternoon so I grabbed my LP and saw what else I could do in Lake Placid until I could go ice skating.

It was somewhat bizarre and insane how my desire to go ice skating increased with every passing hour while I was in Lake Placid. I don’t care much for ice skating, and I hadn’t gone ice skating in years - not since I was in Connecticut with my friend Zach and we went on a whim about six or seven years ago. I don’t know why I suddenly wanted to go ice skating, but perhaps the fact that it was winter and being in a sports-linked area made me restless.

I headed to the ticket booth and saw a sign that said that there wasn’t any ice skating until 1pm. I thought this was ludicrous, and looked at my watch and saw I had about three hours to kill until 1 without any set plans for the rest of the day. I decided to give Lake Placid another walk through during the day and ventured into the bookstores in town and wasn’t that impressed by either of them. I checked their travel sections to peruse through their Lonely Planet guides, or to see if they had any walking guides, but I didn’t see anything that caught my interest and continued down Main Street. I returned to my car, pulled out my New York State LP and saw that John Brown’s grave was nearby.

Once again, this is another example of me doing something that I would never do unless I was on the road, and it’s one of the biggest reasons why I love to travel. I do things out of the ordinary. I go to museum’s I usually wouldn’t care about, go out at night when I may stay in, go see random towns and villages, with the only goal of trying to soak in as much of a cultural experience as possible in a short amount of time. Even though it was freezing outside and snow was everywhere I was excited about my next destination - John Brown’s grave.

I was somewhat caught off guard to see signs pointing towards the grave, and his house. John Brown is a famous American abolitionist who was hanged for leading a raid on the US Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. I thought it was interesting that Brown was born in Ohio (I went to Kenyon so I have a special place in my heart for Ohio) before returning to New York to help implement a new social project where any black man who wanted land would be given land to farm. Brown taught these men farming techniques. It was also at his home where Brown and his followers organized the raid that occurred on October 16, 1859, when Brown and his followers attacked the federal arsenal. They were captured on October 18 and hanged on December 2.

I parked my car in the circle nearby the house and started walking toward the graves which were surrounded by a large gate and fence. The weather was freezing and there was snow a couple feet deep, so my feet became very cold very quickly. I was walking around in my sneakers, jeans, jacket, hat, scarf and gloves, and I knew that I couldn’t venture too far into the property before losing feeling in my feet. I passed the graves, checked out the house and its exterior and made my way to the woods behind the house.

I love walking through the woods, and before the previous day I didn’t hesitate before heading deep into nature. But the combination of the cold weather, my numb feet, the snow, and having something very large and dangerous sounding growl at me the day before made me somewhat hesitant about walking into Brown’s woods. But, I told myself that I couldn’t live my life or travels in fear so I started walking along a trail and took pictures of the pine trees and headed in about five minutes before I realized that my feet were extremely cold and it would be foolish to go any further. I marched back to my car and saw that it was still early in the day, before noon, and it would be an ideal time to head for my next destination, Saranac Lake.

Getting upstate takes forever, but once you’re there, it didn’t take long to get from one town to the next. I read that Saranac Lake was once a major tuberculosis treatment center in the late 19th century, a time when tuberculosis killed more Americans than heart disease - woo hoo!. The first sanitarium for treatment was established in 1884 by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, a New York physician who was diagnosed with tuberculosis early in his career and decided to a place he had visited for pleasure, instead of Europe for treatment. After much hardship he successfully opened the Adirondack Cottage Sanitorium just northeast of Saranac Lake.

With that thought in the back of my mind, and that LP described Saranac as “being kind to anyone who passes through,” I couldn’t imagine not having a decent time in the town. Once I passed a sign welcoming me to Saranac Lake I was driving along a very large lake that was frozen over at parts, and had numerous houses built along its border. Nothing really stood out, no skyscrapers, or even large buildings, I believe the church had the highest point, and I suddenly fell a little for this town. I parked my car in a town parking lot along its Main street and decided to poke around the city for awhile since I wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere or be anywhere.

Parking in the town was free, which was a nice relief after Lake Placid which ticked me off with their parking meters I refused to use, so I immediately liked Saranac Lake. Walking along its main streets I passed beauty shops, cafes, furniture stores and other little shops and stores along the way. I wasn’t looking for anything particular, but just wanted to walk around until I got really hungry. I felt as if I were reaching the outskirts of the town after walking for 20 minutes and headed into a Bar-B-Q joint. I needed something warm, and looked over the menu, but couldn’t decide which meal sounded less dangerous - venison or quail - thanked the men behind the counter and continued my walk along some random town street.

I saw one other person walking along the street towards me and found out that there was indeed food straight ahead so I eagerly picked up my pace and quickly walked to a restaurant that looked as if it came out of the 50s or 60s. It was much warmer inside and I made myself comfortable at the bar.

“Need a menu, honey?” a woman in her 50s with light blond hair and a pink apron asked me as I grabbed a seat.

“Sure thing,” I responded as I shook my hands trying to regain feeling in my fingers. I was handed a menu and was totally blown away by the prices.

“You can get breakfast for three dollars?” I asked aloud more trying to confirm this in my mind than anything, but was surprisingly answered with a “Yep.” Somehow I had jumped into a time travel machine and literally found myself in the 50s. Nothing on the menu was more than a few dollars, as I tried to think how this restaurant sustained itself with such low pries.

I ordered a hot chocolate with whip cream, an orange juice, sunny-side eggs, bacon, corned beef hash and potatoes for a whopping $7. The food was phenomenal as well, and I started up a conversation with some locals who looked no younger than 80.

My first question whenever I find myself in these small, obscure towns, and it’s usually my first thought as well, is “what do these people do with their lives every day?” I usually have plenty of difficulty answering that question in my life and I live in New York City, apparently one of the most happening places in the world, but I was having difficulty imagining what life in a small New York town would do to a strong-willed man. Before I could get into a conversation though my food was being served and I was voraciously cramming food in my mouth as my body continue to warm up.

I ordered another orange juice and got the tab which ended up being the best $10 I’ve ever spent on food in my entire life and left the diner. I walked back towards the lot with my car but decided to head towards the lake instead and gaze out at the frozen water. “What the hell am I doing here?” I’d ponder to myself. “What is anyone doing here?” What I loved about the town was that it was extremely peaceful and quiet as I tried to take it easy for a few minutes before making my way back to the car.

I drove around the town and passed by the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage -where Stevenson lived in the winter of 1887-88 to fight tuberculosis. I parked my car in some person’s driveway and walked over to the house which looked dark and closed, so I wasn’t terribly surprised when the door was locked and no one was around. I peered into the darkened windows but didn’t see anything terribly interesting so I jumped back in my car and drove over to Cottage Row.

Cottage Row was a surprisingly delightful area in the town. The houses were very colorful and the architecture reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses in the outskirts of Chicago with their bright colors and conical tops. I quickly took pictures as I drove by, hoping none of the inhabitants of the houses would be alarmed by some stranger taking pictures of their place.

Unfortunately, my things to do in Saranac Lake had been completed and I wasn’t sure where to go now. I didn’t know if I’d ever be this far north in New York any time soon so the thought of driving to Massena, New York, near the Canadian border - only 66 miles away - was enticing. But then I told myself that was an insane idea, and I wasn’t going to drive to the Canadian border on my final day of the road trip, solely because of the lack of time and I eventually needed to head back to Long Island.

I pulled my car to the side of the road confused and uncertain what to do for the rest of the day, until I remembered that I wanted to go ice skating. I turned my car around and bolted towards Lake Placid with a new found enthusiasm and inspiration. About 20 minutes later I was back on the Main Street of Lake Placid and I parked my car in the free area before heading back to the ice skating rink.

“So, can I go ice skating now, Ma’am?” I asked the woman in the booth.

“No, you can’t. You can come back at 5 and skate then if you’d like,” she responded in a witch-like voice that made my blood curdle, and my heart skip a beat. This woman really had it out for me for some reason. I thanked her, headed towards the bookstores in town and killed about thirty minutes before making my triumphant return to the rink.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not even that big of an ice-skating enthusiast, and I hadn’t gone in years, but the combination of this and this woman’s behavior towards me gave me this huge thrill to go ice skating, so when I returned to pay for my $7 ticket for skates and my skating ticket I had the biggest damn grin on my face. I collected my ticket and was told to head to the back of the building to pick up my skates. A woman on a stool greeted greeted me, asked for my skate size, when I sheepishly asked for an 11 to be safe thinking skates would be loose, and got them on for skating.

As I prepared my skates for what could have likely been the last activity I accomplished with working legs (assuming I’d have a terrible accident and become paralyzed) I thought of all the times when I was so much younger when I played ice hockey and the hours it would take to suit up for my practices. I don’t know how I became turned on to ice hockey, but after a year or two of skating around with a stick and crashing into walls instead of stopping with my skates, and completely failing to successfully complete a crossover while skating, I hung up my skates and called it quits at age 11. It’s too bad I wasn’t able to complete that crossover move back then, because perhaps I would’ve been a decent hockey player, but tonight I was looking forward to enjoying my first skate in years.

I slowly walked out of the lobby area and hit the ice without falling. I started my lap around the rink and felt wonderful in skates. I was gliding at a decent speed and every movement seemed effortless. I had been wanting to go ice skating for the past two days and it ended up being everything I thought it would be plus so much more. I skated continuously for the entire two hours, only falling once when I was distracted by a group of men applying a blowtorch to the ice for some maintenance reason, but that was it. The entire night I skated and glided by others, except the speed skaters, and loved every second of the experience. I was having an incredible time, and it was nice to hear classic rock songs being played over the loudspeaker.

I asked an elderly couple to take a picture of me on skates because I explained to them none of my friends would believe that I went ice skating, knowing in fact that none of my friends would give a damn, but I thought that it would be nice to have. The couple had to use their camera because my camera’s battery had died, and I have yet to receive that picture…sigh.

I took my only break from skating after an hour and got some water before hitting the rink again and going for another hour nonstop. My ankles were cut up pretty badly afterwards, and I surprisingly never felt cold throughout the night, but I was ready to head back home after two hours of skating. I handed back my skates and made my way to the car, preparing my mind for the 315 mile drive back to Long Island - 315 MILES! That’s 5 and a half hours!

Before hitting the road I wanted to celebrate how much fun I had had during the weekend and everything I was able to see and accomplish with an ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s. I was astounded to see that I wasn’t the only customer getting ice cream on this freezing January night in Lake Placid, but I quickly ate my ice cream before starting my drive back home.

I plugged home into the GPS system but it was taking me in a strange direction so I performed a U-Turn to head back towards Lake Placid when I looked in my rear view mirror to see flashing lights going off behind me. I didn’t want to block the police car so I pulled over to the side, and was confused when the car followed me to the curbside. A man walked out of the car and put on that extremely annoying bright flashlight attached to cop cars and made his way to my window.

“Is there a problem officer?” I asked the man as I rolled down my window.

“Do you know how fast you were going back there?” he replied. It was almost as if our conversation was taken from any movie, book, tv show. I almost felt as if I knew what I was going to say next, and how the officer would react before we’d eventually end up in a high speed chase with bullets flying through the air and me driving my car off of a ramp, flying 200 feet in midair before safely landing on a highway back to New York City.

I handed my info over to the cop and he spent the next 45 minutes observing and reading my papers. I didn’t know what was taking so damn long, and was considering going to the cop car to provide assistance so I could get back on the road, but thought this would be a terrible decision so I waited in my car patiently and pissed off, listening to my music until the cop returned.

“Well, I’m going to give you a traffic violation instead of a speeding ticket,” the officer told me as I wondered what the hell this exactly meant.

“Thank you officer. I really appreciate it,” was my response, as I hoped this meant he was letting me off for some unknown reason. He explained what I would have to do with the ticket and about my court date, but I told him that I lived in New York City and was visiting on vacation, but fortunately I could do everything by mail. I was a little upset when he left, but honestly, what could I do? I got screwed over.

This kind of put a damper on what was an incredible trip upstate, but I was able to recover emotionally and made my way back home, safely and in one piece. The trip itself was really interesting and enjoyable. I got to see a totally different part of New York, and everything went well except for the final part of the trip. I was glad that I went on the trip, and was excited to make my return to the Adirondacks to complete the second half of the road trip sometime in the near future. Although the Adirondacks may not have everything New York City may provide, but I wondered how incredible it must be for runners. I loved the trip and it helped me re-focus on my work and life in general, and I had a great time as well. It was a great experience.

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