This picture was taken Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the trees were not yet in bloom and the clouds would soon give way to rain...lots of rain (a theme for the weekend as we'll discuss). However, it was quite the scene. I can see why Lake Arcadia is a special place in Dave's family.
Lumi and I arrived at the house late on Friday night. Our trip was mostly over freeways (toll roads...it was Jersey), but once we got into the town it was mostly an uphill climb. We found the driveway pretty easily with the help of the GPS (Garmin nuvi...not the eTrex as I previously discussed). When we got on the driveway...hold on for dear life. It was about a mile long, and if you were doing 5 mph, you were going too fast. My Civic made it, however, and despite my low clearance, only bottomed out once! When we arrived at the house, we started playing a rousing game of "stump." The game of stump is very simple. You have a hammer, nails, and a tree stump. Everyone gets a nail and one turn at the hammer. If you hit somebody else's nail, they drink. If you miss, you drink. If you see a spark, social. That's about it. Since I don't intend on turning Caputo's Corner into a drinking game blog, I'll leave this topic by saying that we played a few rounds of stump over the weekend (both with and without alcohol).
On Saturday, we had hoped we would do some fishing, canoeing, and maybe even some swimming. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas. Keeping in contact with the guys back home, turns out we got off easy. Tornado's and floods were the theme of the day back in Maryland. Dave's sister sent him a picture from Fell's Point showing it flooded out! Fortunately, it did not seem like the weather dampened Hilary's (Dave's fiancé) bachelorette party in Baltimore. Nevertheless, it came down in buckets all day up and down the Eastern seaboard, but we avoided the really severe weather where we were. That did not stop most of the guys at the party from taking a quick plunge into lake. I, however, decided that keeping my clothes on and staying dry was probably the best idea...especially since we were without the services of a functioning shower! You see, overnight on Friday, a pipe burst and something got clogged in the main water line to the house. There was a cascade of water in the basement. Yuck. Eventually, the leak eventually stopped, but our bathroom options were extremely limited. We ended up with just one working bathroom that was supposed to be used only in extreme circumstances. We had to do our business, for the most part, outside. That didn't really faze us. After all, we were in the woods!
Saturday evening, we decided to take a quick trip to a local establishment called the Town Tavern. The attraction to this place was the $20 all you can eat buffet ($28 if you wanted to include seafood). Oh this place had it all, turkey, chicken, meatballs, baked ziti, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, sausage and peppers, kielbasa, and the list goes on. My goodness! Needless to say, we had a good time eating dinner that night. If we ever decide to go back to West Milford, that's where we're going for dinner at least one night. Check us out. The guy with his eyes closed is Zack, Dave's cousin. Had to point that out.
Speaking of food, nobody left the lakehouse hungry. When we were not scarfing down buffet food, we were cooking meat: lots of meat. We had bacon, eggs, and english muffins for breakfast each morning, deli meats for lunch, and cheeseburgers for a midnight "snack." I did not partake of the cheeseburger snack because I was so stuffed from the Town Tavern dinner I just simply did not have room for it.
Sunday for me anyway was the highlight of the weekend. The property is located in one of the more mountainous parts of New Jersey (as mountainous as New Jersey gets), but the really nice thing is that we are still less than an hour from Manhattan. The lake is surrounded by higher terrain. On Sunday morning we took a little hike up one of the trails that led to a hilltop. When we got there, this is what we saw.
Blogosphere, what you see in this picture is the skyline of New York City (and Jersey City on the right...but that doesn't count :-)). Only one word can describe this view: SPECTACULAR! An iPhone photo just can't do this view justice. It reminds you that even in the hustle and bustle of a city like New York, you don't have to go far to find something just a little more peaceful, even if that peace is somewhere in West Milford, New Jersey :-).
After that we cleaned up the house and packed for home. Dave put a call into Roto Rooter to fix the leaky pipes and we were on our way. The drive home was uneventful except for the usual construction backups on the Jersey Turnpike...until we got to Delaware. I get cranky when I sit in traffic...and that toll in Delaware is probably the worst tollbooth in the country. It serves no purpose if you ask me, and right now it is undergoing a retrofit for some high-speed EZ-Pass lanes. Eventually we made it to the UD exit where we got off and shunpiked that sucker. We made a pit stop at Wawa, gassed up, and pretty soon we were back on I-95 on our way back to Baltimore. Lumi drove the last 40 miles or so while I ate my delicious Italian hoagie.
Hope you enjoyed the highlights of our little journey to Lake Arcadia in West Milford. As Caputo's Corner takes more trips later this year, we'll be doing even more highlights and features you will enjoy. Thanks for reading!
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