This photo pretty much sums up our weekend adventure. We thought it would be great to go for a hike on Memorial Day. The weather was beautiful, we needed some fresh air....and Bear Mountain is only an hour drive from New York City. We woke up early-ish in the morning, pulled our camelpacks from the storage bin, grabbed some sunscreen and headed for the hills. After a beautiful drive up the Palisades Parkway, we got to Bear Mountain. What is that line of cars? Why does everyone look confused? Because the MOUNTAIN IS CLOSED! You heard me. They closed a mountain. There were too many people up there and all the parking lots were full and people were starting to park in very bad places (like the side of a busy highway) and so the park rangers closed the mountain. Not to be deterred, we headed to West Point, where we thought we could hike around their beautiful rolling hills. The really grumpy ladies at the visitors center said we were welcome to hike at West Point, if we were military personnel and had the proper clearance. Next! Even though they were grumpy and unhelpful, they did tell us about an indian reservation about 20 minutes away with great hiking. We drove there, parked in an empty parking lot and headed up the mountain. The first 20 minutes were great, until we started to notice the bogs, streams and STANDING WATER. You know what standing water means, a massive breeding ground for mosquitoes. We were doomed. We got out the mosquito repellent and covered ourselves from head to toe and then decided to tough it out. After about another 10 minutes, I noticed that Dan looked like Pigpen from the Peanuts. He was completely swarmed with mosquitoes! West Nile virus, here we come! We decided that if we ran, it would be harder for the little buggers to land on us, so we started running down the mountain to the car as fast as we could go. Until....a giant snake (a ribbon snake I found out later after an internet research session with my friend Sue) ran out in front of me! I screamed, Dan squirmed and then we continued on our run, jumped into the car, locked the doors and squealed our tires on outta there.
I think the next time we hike, we will be in Utah. They have less mosquitoes there!