Friday - July 1, 2016 Phish summer tour and Lake George
So Holly's little sister, Faith, and her BF are super crazy into Phish. They follow the band around to several or their shows every summer. My sister's husband, Alex, is also way into Phish, but is way into live music in general. I've heard from both of them say that these Phish shows are a ton of fun, so sometime back in March or so during my last visit with my sister, I inquire about going to one of the shows in Upstate NY. She counters with 3 shows, in a row, and we stay at a lake house. SIGN ME UP. Several months and many cycles through the entire Phish discography later, I'm arriving in Newark, NJ ready for my weekend of music and lake life. However, during that time, we did manage to attract more people to this musical getaway. Alex's best friend from, ummmm I forget, and his best man at his wedding is Chris, aka Navy. He is also an avid Phish fan and he brings along his family of 4. Wife, Steph, and 2 daughters Alex (4 yrs) and Sienna (2 yrs). I bring along my NYC bestie, Alex Mann (Age omitted), who is now fully engrossed in her MBA at Columbia while working full time. She's more than willing to take a vacation away from that craziness. So the party consists of two hardcore Phish fans, wives of said fanatics, two 4 year olds, one 2 year old, a new born, two people in their thirties, four people from DC, 5 people from the City, one person from the west coast, 3 Alex's, 2 Filipinos plus 2 half Filipinos, many more white people, and about 12 educational degrees. Add that up and divide by Pi, it comes out to 14.2 people, but you can check my math.
Back to Newark... I rented a car since the other two cars are filled with strollers and car seats and head into the city to pick up Alex on the upper east side of Manhattan via the George Washington bridge and FDR. Being part of the bridge and tunnel crowd is something that you want to avoid as a New Yorker. But I'm just visitng, so back off people! Just kidding, but it is a effing pain in the ass to get in and out of the city whether by bridge or by tunnel. Luckily for me, I'm coming into the city after the morning rush hour and the congestion is not that bad and I get a great view of Manhattan while on the bridge.
So into the city I go and I pull up to Alex's apartment. BTW, driving in the city is something almost no one does, so it feels completely weird diving these streets as opposed to walking them. I double park this super cool ford fusion rental car in front of Alex's entrance since the city has almost zero parking. I help Alex with her bags into the car and off to see the wizard we go. Its a 4 hour drive from the city to our lake house on Lake George. Since we have all day to do it, I suggest that we stop somewhere along the way for lunch and sightseeing. Alex throws a bunch of options out and we settle on Poughkeepsie. Sound it out, Puh-Kips-See. Apparently a lot of the names in upstate New York have Indian words and names, like Patel and Graham Masala. Actually more like Pocahontas, dances with wolves, and thanksgiving. Alex told me what tribe used to roam the land here and I went "COOL! I learned about those guys in school!" then promptly forgot which tribe they were, Inkas... Iroquois? Anyhow, there's a bridge that spans the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie called the "Walking Bridge over the Hudson" or at least that's what I googled. It used to be an old railroad that has now turned into a park and a walking path. So we arrive at the bridge and I grab my camera. Its a bit humid out and fairly warm, standard for NY in the summer, but definitely a nice day out for a walk. A few minutes out we are over the water and taking in the sights. I look left and I see this super dark cloud and this wall of haze. I ask Alex what that is and she goes, "That's rain". I've never seen it like that before, and its not supposed to rain until tonight, so I don't really pay any attention to it and continue to look for an interesting picture. Suddenly I'm smacked on the shoulder with a giant heavy drop of water. "Is that rain?" "Yep" Alex replies. Lame, a few more shots and we should start heading back. Second very large drop of water hits me square on the head, cutting right through my hair. That's odd. I line up my second shot and before I get it off we are in a sudden torrential downpour. It was no Nola JazzFest of 2016, but it did start like an olympic sprinter (you know, really fast). Alex and I bolt to the car which is pointless since we are a 10 minute run away. We were soaked from the sideways rain within the first 30 seconds, and of course by the time we got back to the car it had stopped raining completely. Thanks for nuthin' Poughkeepsie, and to think that I even took the time to learn how to spell your name, and you know I'm a terrible speller.
So our lake house wasn't so much a lake house as it was a "close to the lake" house. That's okay, we still had dock access within a 5 minute walk. Our cabin was a cute place which had enough space for our 14.2 people since it had an addition to the main house with its own kitchen and bathroom. I guess Lake George is in the vicinity of the Adirondacks which necessitates that every chair is an Adirondack chair, not really but I thought it was really weird that a type of chair gets named after a mountain range. That's like naming a sofa after the SG Valley or a table after Las Vegas, though a Vegas Table kinda makes sense.
Cool, we're all unpacked at the house, which means we put our bags down, and are ready for our first night of Phish. However, in checking the weather earlier in the day, we know that we are expecting rain that night and our concert is... outdoor... yeaaaaaaaaah. Alex senior tells me that the Phish show is rain or shine, looks like we won't be having 'or shine' today. My sister very proudly announces that she will not be going to the show tonight and that instead she will be staying dry and will be sleeping. BTW, that's her favorite thing to do. If you could give sleep as a b-day or Xmas gift, I would be all set for gifts for my sister until she got to that age where old people refuse to sleep in past 6 am.
Anyhow, Ms Mann and I waver back and forth on what to do and eventually we decide to roll the dice and bail if its too crappy. Big Daddy Alex and Chris are totally in and have Bryson and Little Alex all suited up to brave the storm. So its about a 40 minute drive from our lake house in Lake George to the Saratoga Springs Performing Arts Center (SPAC) and it starts with a very light drizzle. But as soon as we exit the freeway for Saratoga Springs, its torrential downpour time again. These windshield wipers could not move fast enough for us to see out and Lady Alex and I exchanged very uncertain glances. We decide to head to a drug store and buy umbrellas and as soon as we do, the rain predictably stops. 'Its like raaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiinnnnn, on your wedding day...' Oh the irony is welcome as long as we aren't miserably cold and wet as we catch pneumonia with a bunch of hippies.
We find parking, which apparently is the same as the VIP lot, for $10 bucks. That's cheaper than 'Super Unimportant Person' parking for an LA concert. We park on grass just like we do for the Rose Bowl, and also like the Rose Bowl, everyone is tailgating! Well at least they are doing the drinking park. Middle Bear Alex and I take note to bring beer the next day.
We stroll through the grounds of SPAC; its a really cool place, very pretty, very outdoorsy. They even have a mini opera house that a bunch of fancy pants people were confused by the masses of concert goers in their early 40's that surrounded them. We find the giant crowd of people which indicated that we have arrived at the back of the line to enter the outdoor arena. We follow suit and rub elbows with the dread-locked and bra-less concert goers. As we do, mother nature begins to tease us with a bit of sprinkling rain. I'm fighting my urge to open my umbrella trying to show confidence that the rain will not worsen and everything will be fine. I finally realize that I look like an idiot holding a closed umbrella while we are clearly getting rained on and I give in and open up this very large golf umbrella. I immediately become everyone's hero, well to those that are withing a 2 foot radius of me. But to them, I'm like Ghandi, well more like Underdog, actually more like "that guy with the umbrella in line at the Phish concert". My fame is short lived as someone near the front of the line goes, "Hey man, you better hide that, they aren't letting umbrellas in." WTF! I just bought this thing! And its says its okay on the SPAC website! Oh, its a different set of rules for this concert? Oh, you're a jerk face? Oh, okay then, jerk face. Just kidding, but I wast not happy. Consolation prize, they let me check the umbrella like a coat check in NYC. I thought that was very odd. Curly haired Alex was smart and bought the travel umbrella which is now stashed deep in her bag. For now, the weather is holding up with just light sprinkles and we head in to explore the venue.
This concert venue is pretty well equipped. Lots of places to buy food and booze, large permanent structured bathrooms, 2 stories of covered assigned seating and a giant hill of grass seating, which was surprisingly dry. Daddy Mac Alex and Chris scoped out a spot near the exit of the venue at the very top corner of the hill. This was a very critical strategic spot as we later found out at the end of the concert when the bum rush to leave starts, and we are in the lead with two strollers. Tally Ho!
Onto the concert itself... I heard several songs that I knew so that was really cool. There was this crazy dancing lady behind us, she had some serious moves and she kept it up the ENTIRE concert. Everyone was really into the music and you could tell that everyone was super die hard fans; everyone knew the lyrics, everyone was paying attention, and everyone was super super super nice! I saw this one guy bump into another guy going the other way and knocked his cigarette out of his mouth. The bump-er picks up the bump-ee's cigarette up off the ground and hands it to the bump-ee, apologizes, and they hug and have a several minute conversation. Where does that happen? Definitely not at a Kanye West concert. One of the coolest things I saw during the concert was, at certain times during the music, the crowd would throw a bunch of glowsticks in the air. It looked super cool at night and it was crazy how everyone just knew when to do it. Mental note, go find glowsticks.
All in all, I'd say that day one was a bit mellow, due to the preceding rain, but there were still a ton of people and there was great energy. I was really happy that we went the first day and didn't chicken out, especially since the weather totally held up. This is one of the first concerts where one band play the ENTIRE night and had an intermission! What is this, Broadway? Either way, that's a lot of music, and its good music to boot. Night one, check!
Saturday - July 2, 2016
Alex and I 'decide' to sleep in till, oh, say noon-ish by which time the rest of the house had already had breakfast, went kayaking, had lunch, and was settling down for nap time. Oops! To make up for it, I go for a training run. Today I'm scheduled for 8 miles and I take off from our cabin to run along the lake and explore the town of Lake George. Turns out, downtown Lake George is really cool! It still has a small lake town feel but is definitely developed. There's everything from breweries and distilleries to boutique purse shops, which I threaten Ms Alex with a purchase for her (they were bedazzled terribleness). There are a couple lake beaches along the main part of the lake and a lake front walk for a mile or two which is lined with shops, restaurants, bars, docks, parasailing, and steamships. These steamships are old school and have giant paddle wheels and super loud steam whistles that sounds exactly like a train whistle when you hear it from bed while trying to sleep in. It was very confusing at the time.
The absolute best part of the lake was the clouds. These things were absolutely gorgeous and they were everywhere. I'm not one for super scenic views but these were undeniably special, so prepare for pictures of clouds!
You know what the best part about a walking tour of a lake town? Its the perfect excuse to bar hop, enjoy the weather, and relax. So that is what we did, happy times. I miss it already.
Back at the house, the rest of the gang is having super early dinner so that we can get to the concert early. Sounds like a good opportunity to do a little tailgating at SPAC. Everyone starts to hustle so we can get out of the door on time. Do you know what it looks like to have 2 families out the door and into car seats? Borderline chaos injected with turkey baster full of confusion.
Somehow the parents seem to get everything together and everyone is out the door, in 3 separate cars. Chris and family take off early while marathon runner Alex and I decided to caravan over. On the way we stop at a gas station and grab a 6 pack of the very lovely Lienkugel Summer Shandy. This is hands down my favorite summer beer. After filling both cars, buying beer, and 4 trips to the bathroom, we pile back into the cars and head to our very baller VIP parking since we are now in the know. My sister's car follows our car into a tandem parking spot and Upper East Side Alex and I pop a couple beers, sit in our trunk, and watch the balancing act that my sister and Mr Alex perform to get the kids ready. I'm enjoying life completely at this point. As we finish our beers, we grab another one to wait in line with and meet up with Chris's family who magically parked only a few cars away despite being 15 minutes ahead of us. This line is even bigger than yesterday's, but there's no sign of rain and the guy in front of us decides to give us a few handfuls of glowsticks! Super score!
With all 10 of us in tow, we are overly equipped to stake out an admiral sized spot in the same area as yesterday. To our delight, the crazy dancing lady was still there, and our neighbor friends from the night before were there also. This family was gracious enough to give Bryson and Teenie Weenie Alex a few glow sticks the night before. Today, Chis had come prepared with his own stash but the real gold mine was the connectors that you used to make a glow stick into a glow bracelet/necklace/Taj Mahal. For these precious gems, Bryson had figured out that our neighbor family had oodles of them and was not shy about slyly taking the connectors from them, one at a time. Included in our armory of glow sticks was an expanse of 3 blankets for us to sprawl out on and dance on, and oh what dancing there was. I was like James Brown with that ish. But Phish Head Alex, man he went to town. I was like Scotty Pippen to his Michael Jordan. He was like Beyonce and I was like the rest of Destiny's child. I was like this year's presidential election candidates and he was like every other year's presidential election candidates. Dancing machine Alex literally cut the rug up.
When we weren't dancing, it was full on arts and craft time with these glow sticks. The best thing about glowsticks? They make for some awesome pictures. But good lord is it hard to take these night shots. I'm pretty sure I got lucky with all of these shots and had Lightroom fix all my terrible mistakes behind the lens. So horray technology!
The crowd tonight had crazy crazy energy. The band (oh right, we weren't here just to play with glowsticks and dance) was playing a great set and before we realized it intermission has come and gone and they were already on their very traditional encore, also known at their really short third set. I had so much fun tonight playing with the kids, dancing to Phish, and trying to figure out when to throw my glowsticks. Columbia MBA Alex and I had a discussion that we were in the wrong spot to be throwing glowsticks because no one was throwing glowsticks at us. As she phrased it, there was to return on our investment, our "don't worry if you throw all your glowsticks because someone else will throw theirs at you and you can pick those up" investment, yeah, that one. Even still, the second night was pretty damn cool. Surprisingly enough, I definitely was excited to come back the next night and do it all over again.
Awwwwww, poor Bryson is all tuckered out. Actually, no, he was faking this and seconds later he was doing laps around the blankets with little lady Alex.
Since it is Saturday, and we're in a new town, and middle aged Alex and I like to explore new places together we hustled back to Lake George to get a taste of the night life. You know what's great about going out in a small lake town? You get TOWNIES! What's a townie, you say? Simple, its the people that live there, in the super tiny town that they live in, as opposed to locals, who are the people who live in towns with their own high school, hospitals, perhaps even their own license plate frames. "Tierrasanta - Island in the Hills" Shout out to my hometown!
This immediately spurs the game, townie or visitor, which makes for great people watching. The people watching goes up to 11 when Alex and I are interrupted on the dance floor by this guy who starts to make out this this chick, then, mid kiss, starts to flex his biceps over his head in what I imagine to be his acclimation of victory. If that wasn't amazing enough, two minutes later, he clears half the dance floor so that he can hit SEVERAL muscle poses, both standing and on his knees. Late night party Alex and I are amazed at this greatness. Its like seeing Miles hump his blanket; its impossible to even pretend that its not happening. But it is happening and Late night Alex and I don't even bother to hide our laughter and elation. Oh wait, it gets better! The DJ kills the music and the bar lights come on so we hang at the bar to get one last drink in. Just on the other side of the room from us are two pairs of guys and girls. The girls are pouring themselves all over these two guys. One guy is playing it super duper cool or hard to get but is still encouraging the girl to continue her pursuit of 2 am good decisions. The other guy is clearly avoiding encouraging his girl's advances. Hands in his pockets, very wide arm motions, super avoidy body positions. But this girl is RE-LENT-LESS. She's playing with his hair, draping her arms around his neck, pulling him into her, running her hands all over him; and he looks sooooo awkwardly uncomfortable and clueless. Apparently we are not the only ones to notice this exchange and we soon have 6 people watching this go down, about 5 feet away. The other group of drama watchers turn out to be his friends and one of them goes to try and run interference, which she fails at miserably. It finally takes 2 of them to pull him out of the tractor beam of that girl's pheromones and she is left very disappointed and has that unmistakable look of "What the fuck do I do now?" I am stomping my feet at this point because this is so hilarious to watch. Don't judge me okay, I didn't do anything. I just like to be entertained. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
That ends the night and we grab a very traditional slice of NY Thin Crust pizza and hail a cab back home since this place is too small for Uber. We end up sharing this cab wtih 4 other parties, I guess that's how they roll there.
Sunday July 3, 2016
After a very satisfying night out, Sleepy faced curly hair Alex and I are super enamored with Lake George and take the opportunity to go kayaking around the shores of the lake. We manage to get the kayaks in via a steel stair case and I am amazed that neither of us tipped over. I kept seeing the memory of my mom and dad getting launched onto the Wailua River in Hawaii in a kayak and immediately tippng over. C'mon mom! Stop tipping the kayak!
We paddle paddle paddle along the near shore and we get a great close up of all the lakefront houses with their fancy boat docks and their covered boat garages that have sundecks on the roof of the boat garages, which many were filled with party party people. I want to party on that sundeck also. I must figure out how to get one of these houses.
Today is no exception to the amazing cloud trend that we've been seeing. I'm telling you, these clouds were dope. Check the pics mang!
After a hour or so of paddling around, we dragged the kayaks up and switch to lounge mode. To me that means beers on the dock; to Alex, it means fashion magazine time. We hang out on the dock for a while. Blue toenail polish Alex has started a tradition of taking a photo of all the places she travels to with her feet in the foreground. This picture kinda reminds me of a webiste/tumblr "hot dog or legs" except this picture isn't funny like that website. But it does have feet in it, which is close to legs, and apparently legs are close to hot dogs.
We spend a couple hours or so on the dock lounging, swimming, getting kicked off by some lady, swimming to a swimming platform, napping, etc. 'All very appropriate sunday at the lake day activities. Although I don't think we did anything that is in the "Sunday at La Grande Jatte" painting. Especially didn't do that part with the umbrella and the lady with the big butt.
So let's go to the concert then! After another set of beers in the parking lot, a pair to walk with, and a pair hidden in Scarley's stroller, we mosey on through the SPAC grounds. Near the entrance we see a beautiful wedding party enter what seems to be a chapel. They looked all pretty, bridesmaids in creme satin, the groomsmen in suits, the bride in white. However, turn your head just a little bit to the right... 2,000 grubby hippies messing up all their pictures. LOL. I bet they didn't check the SPAC calendar when they planned on that date! On second thought, it could've been a 15-iera, you know when a latin girl turns 15 and get a crazy expensive party? I've never been to one of those, nor a bat mitzvah, nor a coming out party, but I've been to a lot of parties; go figure.
During our walk, Phish Veteran Alex tells us that usually there's a place called Shakedown Street where you Phish fans sell their "goods". Anything from food (Phish fans apparently live on grilled cheese sammiches), to shirts, to art, to edible drugs... and normal drugs. We had been on the look out the past two days but didn't stray much from the "let's get the fuck outta here" route that led us home. Today though, we asked some people where it was and the general consensus what that there a yellow brick road that went around the venue, over the freeway, into the next county, and back in time. It was far and over there, basically. Lucky for us, we still had our walking around/standing in line beers which kept us company as we looked for the great Wizard of OZ. On the way, we were offered beer, gummi THC, magic mushrooms, pot brownies, tickets, and saw many people peeing in various places. One thing that we found odd is that a lot of people were holding up their index finger which I believe means that they need a ticket. Overhearing other people's conversation, they were trying to 'source' cheap/free ticket. I thought it was interesting that they would come all the way out there and not have a ticket and just hope to get one. Anyhow, very Artsy Alex bought a cool scarf for her sister's b-day and managed to avoid buying grilled cheese sammiches.
Turns out, our little walk to Shakedown Street landed us at the other gate; we had walked almost all the way around the entire venue. We very happily strolled in a few minutes late; late enough where there was no more crowd at the entrance. Inside the venue, the band was already playing and the crowd was buzzing. People were excited. There were several girls with hula hoops doing cool dances with them, lots of drinking, and lots of pot smoke, LOTS of post smoke, lol. We took a quick look at the booths near that end of the venue which included a place to buy organic blueberries for like $5 for 10 blueberries. WTF man.
At this point, our group is well prepared for day 3 of Phish. All our old crowd friends, more blanket space, and super advanced, state of the art, space age technology style glow sticks. What's left? Dance, play with the kids, dance, make things out of glow sticks, dance, throw glow sticks, aaaaaaand... dance
This picture pretty much summarizes my Phish experience. This picture is amazing. Daddy Alex rocking out with little Scarley hanging out on her shelf. This one is going on the wall for sure.
Super photogenic Alex goes, you take more pictures of me than anyone since my parents. Its because I get pictures like this!
The last encore of the weekend was no disappointment. Best of all, we figured out when to throw our glowsitcks! Better yet, somehow glowsticks landed on us too! I got the best pictures I could, but to really have a great shot, you had to be deeeeeeep in the crowd. Even so, we're talking dozens and dozens of glowstick storms, one of the coolest things I've seen at a show; aside from the actual bands of course.
Show over. Bolt to the cars. Sleep.
Monday July 4, 2016
Still excited about the show last night, we pack up the house, pose for some group shots, say our goodbyes, and head for some last minute beach time before heading back to the city. What an awesome weekend. Can't wait to do it again!!!!
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