The beauty of it all...

I arrived back in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state a few days ago.

It is where we have our summer "camp"; unlike one of the Great Camps of days gone by but, it is a great camp to us. Modest in size and amenities it has been my summer home for the past fifty- ahem- years. It is where I have spent many wonderful days swimming, waterskiing, hiking and making lifelong friends (one of them I happened to marry ;) . The many nights have been (mostly!) cool and filled with the scent of campfires and balsam. Not like the balsam pillows the tourists buy, but the REAL thing; fragrant, penetrating and fabulous.

There is nothing to which I can compare my memories and thoughts of my summers on beautiful Brant Lake. There is no comparison. My parents brought me here when I was six weeks old and it is still where I spend the summer months. My husband and I hold this place near and dear to our hearts and now at twenty two, my daughter does as well. The three of us have grown up here. God willing, we will spend every summer we are yet to have, looking out onto the welcoming water as it sparkles in the morning sushine. We will marvel at the cries of the loon as it calls to its lifelong mate. As we gaze up to a wide open, black sky that is adorned with millions of beautiful twinkling jewels we will, for each moment, be thankful for the beauty of all this and the ability to be in the midst of it...