Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?
We hadn’t taken a vacation in over two years. Our last one, we went to Fredericksburg, a Texas Hill Country town, where we Airbnb’ed a farmhouse that became the site of a scorpion mutilation and a three-day celebration of her twenty-third birthday.
We spent our days sliding in and out of empty storefronts and dining in empty restaurants. In the long evenings we lathered ourselves with bug spray that left sour aftertastes in our steaks. When it became dark, we climbed into the car and stretched our necks toward the windows, trying to see the stars.
After we got home we told each other that it was wonderful and that we couldn’t wait to do it again.
Before we knew it, though, two years had gone by, and we found ourselves residing in a new state where the extents of our long weekends were confined to our apartment with tired games of Battleship and empty takeout boxes.
There came a point where we couldn’t keep blaming our lack of adventure on relocation frugality. Once our lives settled in, it seemed that when the weekend came around a new episode would conventionally drop or we would accidentally spend too much at dinner; therefore, the backburner grew.
Upon our arrival to Massachusetts, we were bombarded with suggestions about where we needed to go and what we needed to see.
Our defaulted response: “Oh, yes, yes. We’ve been meaning to go. We just haven’t found the time. You know, with work and all.”
Most of the time it was true. We did have scheduling conflicts. However, it was the follow-up that made me want to turn myself inside out.
“So, did you guys get a chance to check out so-and-so?”
Another defaulting response: “Oh, man… we’ve been swamped. When things clear up, we plan on it.”
By the third interaction, we abandoned our act and admitted that our traveling wouldn’t happen anytime soon. By the fourth, the inquiries stopped.
With the approach of our second New England winter came a bout of juxtaposition. What should’ve been the beginning of hibernation was actually suppressed jitteriness, which I now attribute to the Hallmark channel that played on repeat.
The constant viewing of dim lighting and manufactured snow gave birth to a realization that maybe they had a point, that maybe there was something worth seeing out there. This newfound urgency couldn’t have been any timelier, really. My twenty-fifth was coming up in a few months, so we agreed to a two-in-one.
We cleared a Saturday and hopped onto Airbnb. It became a whole thing. Dual laptop system—one hooked to the TV, the other acting as a navigational passenger.
Because I had been reiterating that I really, really wanted a winter wonderland vacation, we filtered our searches to rural-based residences. It wasn’t going great at first. We couldn’t find anything under two-fifty. I mean, outskirt bungalows were going for four, five hundred a night.
Our search radius was confined to western Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, so we decided to branch out to Vermont and upstate New York, hoping to find something cheaper.
We found a place in Vermont that seemed promising, but upon a closer look it was just a sad story wrapped up in a $220-a-night ranch house. The description comprised a detailed list of prohibitions and a borderline rant about how a previous group had destroyed and sunk the owner’s boat in the river, costing him thousands of dollars. Though we felt for the guy, we quickly moved on.
A few lakeside homes were appealing. Some converted farmhouses looked great. None of them had that Hallmark vibe I wanted, though.
On her computer she had been coming across a place called the Adirondack Mountains, so we projected it onto the TV. We surfed through the possible towns until a common one kept appearing: Saranac Lake. After a quick Google search (think yellow streetlamps among wet snow, with caffeinated steam and bushy locals), we were sold. Given that it was winter, the series of pictures each residence advertised were a frozen lake, powdery snow and wooden cabins. We booked a lakeside cabin, and in one short month we would be on our way.