On our way to Canada last month, we chose to do what we NEVER do--we went without an itinerary. It was incredibly freeing to ramble along, eating at local drive-ins and stopping for the night wherever we happened to land. The most fortuitous landing was here, near Lake George NY, at the Graycourt Inn. Tom and Marianne McDonough came up from Manhattan in the 1960's to buy the hotel and have been there ever since. (Tom's law office is next door.) The really great thing is that the rooms still have that wonderful feeling from my childhood--they even smell like the hotels I remember (a nice thing!) The outdoor pool was surrounded with vintage metal furniture and umbrellas, there were pink petunias everywhere, it was spotlessly clean, the air conditioner was super cold... For dinner we had hamburgers and real shakes from a local place just down the road. The experience truly restored and awakened something in us--an awareness that strip malls and chains have not completely taken over and that there are a lot of good folks to meet and wonderful places to visit. I'm ready for the next leg of the journey.
