Hiking Lake George

Our love for hiking brought us to Prospect Mountain in Lake George. It was a very verticle hike steadily climbing about 1200 feet without any level areas. The hike was about 1.8 miles up for a total of 3.6 miles round trip.

It was great exercise and the view at the top was spectacular, even though Joni complained the whole way up. It was worth it! You can also choose to drive up to the top, but what satifaction is there in that!!!!!!!! I guess the vew is also worth the drive up!!!!!!!!

See the view from the top with Lake George in the background.

Lake George is a very popular vacation spot in upstate NY. It's at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains and is enjoyed year round.

SUNY Potsdam

We continued our nostalgic journey into Joni's past by visiting her old alma mater, The University of New York at Potsdam in Potsdam, NY. Joni was a piano major and earned a Bachelor of Science in Music Education.

We left our motor home in Lake George and took a day trip to Postdam, about 125 miles away.

It was a cloudy rainy day, but that didn't dampen Joni's enthusiasum.
We visited the campus and her sorority, Phi Kappa Pi.

The sorority house brought back a lot of memories, but it was not in good shape at all. We spoke to 3 "sorority sisters" who lived in the house and they talked about how they were trying to fix up the house. They had a tough time financially and membership had fallen. The girls were very interested in hearing some old stories from the past and Joni was interested to see how things had changed. See Joni standing at the front and side of the house. Also see her picture on the 1966 composite. Joni is pictured on the bottom left of the picture. (She was Joan Marone back then). She squeeled with joy when she saw the picture on the second floor wall.

The college campus looked great. It's a very small school. Only 4 buildings when Joni first started in 1963 and 6 buildings at graduation in 1967. Now there are aout 12 buildings...new dorms, new classroom buildings... new music building.

Others pictures show Joni standing in front of her old dorm, MacVicor Hall, and she is pointing to her old doom room. Then we went inside the building and took a picture of her standing in front of the dorm room she lived in. The building is now an office building.

We walked around the campus and visited the "old" Crane building - the music department. Most of Joni's classes were in that building. But there is a new music building now. We toured there also.

We drove around the town of Potsdam - it's very small. Joni thought it looked a lot older. Can't imagine why? It was old when Joni went to college and that was only a few years ago!!!!!

Balloon Festival

We went up in a hot air balloon!!!!!

Bob and Lorraine Thompson, Joni's friends from high school, are very into hot air ballooning. Their family even owns one.

After surprising Lorraine and Bob, by showing up on their door step, we were invited to a hot air balloon festival going on the next day. Lorraine's daughter, Jen and her husband own the balloon. Thank you so much for including us in this fun and exciting day!

We were involved in the whole process from getting to the festival, setting up the balloon, going for a ride, landing, and tearing down. We were part of the whole thing!

We arrived at the site. The basket is prepared and the balloon is hooked up to the basket. See Delton helping Bob and the "crew". The crew is actually Lorraine and Bob's family and friends.

A big fan blows air into the balloon. As the air blows up the balloon, the "crew" helps unfold the balloon. We helped in this process.

A flame heats the air in the balloon and then the
balloon slowly starts to rise.

Since the day started out foggy, we had to wait until the fog lifted to go for a ride. The best time of day to go up is when the sun rises - early! We had to be at the festival at 5:30AM. We had to get up at 4:00AM to get there. It's the wind! There's less wind early in the morning and again later in the afternoon.

We were invited to go for a ride with Pete, (Jen's husband, Lorraine's son in law)! At first Joni was very apprehensive being afraid of heights and ledges. But, she finally agreed to go. It was a chance of a lifetime.

Surprisingly it was not scary at all. It's so peaceful and quiet. You just float like you're on a cloud.

Once you are up in the ski, the view is spectacular. Going up or going down depends on how hot the air in the balloon is.

The next step is finding a place to land. You are totally dependent on the winds for steering and the winds go in different directions at different elevations.

We found a good spot and started to come down. Lorraine, Bob and their family chased the balloon with the "chase car". Keeping in touch by radio, the chase car found us. A tether line was thrown down to the "ground crew" and pulled us to a grassy spot on private land. That's where the balloons usually land but the home owners usually don't mind. Bringing snacks, a party is held at the landing site and the home owners join in the fun.

What a thrilling time we had. There is another hot air balloon festival this coming weekend, during our mini high school reunion. We will be having a fantastic time again.

Lorraine and Joni have bonded again and will always keep in touch from now on!

Lorraine and Bob - THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Your friendship is very special and you family is wonderful!

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Lorraine and Joni

How exciting! Joni has "found" her high school friend, Lorriane Burt Thompson and her husband Bob!

Check out the picture of Joni and Lorriane. Lorraine is wearing a "hair hat". Isn't she cute!


After going to Delton's High School Reunion, Joni decided she wanted to find some of her "old" friends. She quickly found her very best high school friend, Lorraine, on the internet. Lorraine and Joni were bridesmaids in each other's weddings and vowed they would always be friends. They are! They just hadn't seen each other in over 40 years! After many emails and since we are in the New England area we were able to actually get together. The Thompsons live in Schuylerville, near Albany, NY. We are staying in an RV park in the Lake George area, about 25 miles from Lorraine and Bob. What a Blast!


Lorraine was able to connect Joni with some more of her high school friends, Ed Sarzinski, Susan Nelson and Mary Feola. Ed and Susan are married. We are all looking forward to a mini reunion soon and we will post the happy reconnection.

We actually arrived on Lorraine and Bob's door step 2 weeks earlier than the planned visit. Boy, did we surprise them! It's been wonderful catching up on over 40 years worth of life! We've spent a bunch of time together and will keep up with each other from now on!

More on our fun together in a future post!

The White Mountains of NH

It was hard to leave the Durham/Dover area. We had such a good time with family. Wish all our family could be together all the time. Guess that's just a fantasy. We're scattered all across this country.

We left southern NH and headed north to the White Mountains. We camped in Lancaster, NH and used that as our home base as we went sightseeing.

First we took a car tour around and through the mountains, stopping at interesting spots.

One of those places was filled with rocks and waterfalls and lots of people. Everyone was climbing rocks and sliding down small waterfalls into small pools of water. Wished I had my bathing suit with us.

While staying in Lancaster, Joni's brother and his wife Adele, and their friends Carol and John, took a motorcycle ride up to our campsite. It was a long bike ride and short visit, but was great none the less. I guess Joni is getting a little more used to riding on the bikes. She took a quarter mile ride down the street!!!!!!!!!!

There are many beautiful falls in the beautiful state of New Hampshire. We took a few hikes and enjoyed this wonderful state.

As each day passed we looked for signs of fall colors on the trees. They are just starting to turn, but still have a few weeks to go. Hope they have an early change this year.

Another interesting thing we did was take a ride up the White Mountain Cog Railroad. The train goes up to the highest peak in the mountains. It moves very slowly to an elevation of 6288 feet, small compared to the mountains of Colorado, but spectacular even so.

The train is pushed up by both steam engines or biodiesel locomotives. At the top is a restaurant, gift shop, summet musem and observatory. The views are beautiful. Sometimes somewhat noisy and shaky as the train ascends and descends, Joni was glad to finally make up back safe and sound.

Notice the picture of the small house next to the tracks. That house is actually level, so you can see how steep the train ascends.

Our original plans were to go into Maine and tour the state, but we decided to make that another trip. After one week in the White Mountains, we made our way into Joni's home state of NY.