Wednesday and Thursday of the week brought about temperatures in the -20 to -30 F range. I had planned on taking a rest day on Wednesday anyway, but with 10-20MPH winds on Thursday, it wound up being back-to-back rest days. We attempted to do a snowshoe at the Flume Trails, but it was so brutally cold and windy we only lasted about 10 minutes. In addition, the snow was frozen so solid that our snowshoe crampons did not even penetrate the snow surface making for extremely awkward walking. Like walking on concrete! It was just not fun. So, what else to do but eat and shop…
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On Wednesday, we stopped over to the new Good Bite Kitchen, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant on Main St. This is a breath of fresh air in Lake Placid. When we first starting coming up here everything was either steak or pasta, but the last couple years have brought about some more healthy and flavorful options. The Good Bite Kitchen is both of those. The place is quite small and superbly nestled into a little side entranceway to a larger building. Kayte has very creatively made the most of a space that most would deem as not useable. The food here is really great and I highly recommend the Hand Pies. Yum! She is only open for lunch and brunch on Sunday unfortunately, but worth a stop in town. She posts her menu daily(prior to the 11AM opening time) on her Facebook page, and it does change everyday so check it first.
We ended up putzing around town the rest of the afternoon. Stopped in Starbucks for a bit and then Denise did some shopping. Fun 🙁 I was really wishing that the old Aroma Round was still in operation. If you don’t know what that is it is the round UFO-looking building at the end of town on Saranac Ave. It was originally built for one of the Olympic teams during the last Winter Olympics in 1980 and eventually became the original building for High Peaks Cyclery. When we first came up here it was a cool coffee shop called Aroma Round. It was a great place to hang out on a freezing cold day. It has been shut down for the last several years though.
For dinner, we tried another new place called Alegria Garden Cafe. Alegria is also located on Saranac Ave(just down the hill from the Aroma Round bldg) at the front and lower level of the Lake Placid Summit Hotel. They had several vegetarian options on the menu and they also do their best to use local, organic meat and vegetables. We had the Brussel Sprout & Walnut appetizer which was excellent. I cannot believe I am saying that anything with brussel sprouts is amazing, but this surely was. Denise had a Lamb Burger for entree and I had the Beet Risotto. That was the first time had plain lamb and the typical “gamey” taste that I had warned her about was ever present. Not at all a knock on Alegria, that is just how lamb is. The Beet Risotto was awesome. It was quite cheesy and I have not had cheese in awhile, so I was loving life with this dish. We will definitely be coming back here again on our next trip up.
After dinner we headed to the movie theater in town to catch a flick. This is really the only place I ever go to see movies. It is one of those real old type theaters too which is pretty cool in a nostalgic kind of way. Denise wanted to see Les Miserables and I cannot stand musicals, so I ended up seeing Django in the other theater. They have 4. Although Denise showed me the one she was in and I think it was more of a closet than a theater. Django was a Quentin Tarantino film, so it was lots of blood and guts with a little humor thrown in. Every time someone was shot a large, splash of blood would go flying. It was so ridiculous that I could not help but chuckle every time someone was shot.
On Thursday, after our failed attempt at a snowshoe we headed into town for lunch at The Good Bite Kitchen again. Another fabulous lunch! Afterwards I hung out at Starbucks for awhile while Denise did some more shopping. We also stopped at the Fallen Arch Running Store on Main St. which had 40% off Newton running shoes. We talked to the salesman, Bob Tysen, who we later found out was a RAAM competitor. It was a bit ironic since we had just watched the movie “Bicycle Dreams” about a week before, which was about that race. I would highly recommend checking this movie out. I can lend it to you if you live close by. Anyway, Bob had made it all the way to Louisiana in his attempt and was pulled out by his team due to a miscommunication issue and they ran out of gas. Pretty interesting guy with a very decorated past in endurance sports such as long-distance speed skating, mountain-biking, ultra-running, and cycling.
We eventually made our way down to High Peaks Cyclery to peruse their goodies. I usually try to stay away from here after the horrible runaround service they gave me a few year back trying to get my skis waxed. I lost two days of skiing because of their incompetence and they did not do anything to make up for it. They do have some good markdown deals on the upper floor, which are hard to pass up. Denise ended up getting a $200 Patagonia down jacket for $100. So I guess it was worth it. Don’t want to make a habit of it.
Thursday night we headed down to Keene and had dinner at the ADK Café again. Denise got the Earth Plate this time, but was a little disappointed since it did not have all the goodies(i.e. a pile of Kale) like mine did. I ordered the vegetarian Lasagna, which was crazy good! Of course with all the cheese in it, how could it not. No shortage of Vitamin B12 here! I really need to chill on the cheese after this vacation.
Well, that was our two days of inactivity on our vacation, not including travel days. Who says we never relax on vacation? Of course –28 deg F will do that. It is not going to last 3 days, cause I am busting at the seems to get out skiing again. Friday looks to be a little warmer. Well up to 9 deg F anyway…Never thought I would call that warm!
Thanks for reading!
