ADKs - Forever Calling

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

Ah, that all too famous line that floods the Pinterest quotes category, captions artsy photographs like the one I posted above and is plastered on home decor like the painting I have hanging in my office.

It's everywhere.

And I secretly love it.

(Which is not a secret anymore seeing that I just put it out there on the world wide web for all to read BUT, moving on...)

You see, my first experience with the Adirondacks occurred a few years ago and ever since then, I've basically turned into someone straight out of a Bass Pro Shops ad - all plaid everything, wrapped in blankets with an assortment of moose, deer and bears stitched on them and a collector of bear bells, camo paracord bracelets and other miscellaneous hiking gear for the aspiring Mt. Everest mountaineer that I have become (kind of just kidding with that one ... kind of).

(From the summit of Algonquin, 2017)

But the truth is, the Adirondacks, the MOUNTAINS, became a part of me. They left such an imprint on my heart that they fill my daydreams - seeing a moose crossing the street (obviously at the same exact moment that my camera is in hand... driving), drinking a 46 peak-named Nutella/hazelnut latte while strolling down Main Street, becoming a 46-er myself one day, living in a log cabin, watching a sky full of glimmering stars above me far away from city lights and smelling that very fulfilling sweet scented balsam fir on the backroads scenic drive there that lets me know that, finally, I have arrived.

Perhaps you too have found a place that has secured a special spot in your heart already - but if not, I hope that someday you do. I hope that you fall so much in love with a place that it constantly calls for your return; that it revitalizes you, frees you and, in a way, becomes a part of you. I hope that you find a place that steals your thoughts, promotes your dreams and is the home of some of your best memories.

Though I have not traveled much of the world and though there are many places that I still have hopes of visiting, I am confident in saying that I have found my place. For as long as those mountains exist...

... I will forever hear them calling me.