urban ku # 102 ~ a tourism 'nightmare'

A trip into the past • click to embiggenAt the last moment, our canoe trip devolved into a car getaway to the late 50s/ early '60s. Chalk it up to lingering un-wellness and Friday night dinner guests (we should have been packing).

In any event, Saturday AM we found ourselves cruising the web looking for lodging in the central Adirondacks. Labor Day weekend and all, our expectations weren't too high - all of the 'high-end' lodging that we tend to frequent was probably booked months ago.

And then I remembered the Cedar River Golf Course and Motel (and restaurant) - definitely not a 'high-end' lodging property. We've never stayed there but we have played golf there on what must be considered the most natural golf courses (9 holes) in all the Adirondacks, maybe in all the northeast. The history of the course, once owned by Dewey Brown - the first black member of the PGA, is interesting.

As luck would have it, lodging was available so we booked it - a 2 room 'suite' - and off we went.

Now, you have to understand that most of the people we know, especially those in the tourism marketing biz, would probably rather sleep in their cars (after poking their eyes out with a sharp stick) than stay at the CRGC&M. Most golfers I know would probably rather have a Cobra Speed LD/F driver (toaster on a stick) parked where the sun don't shine than go out of their way to play this golf course. The restaurant? Locals know it as a great place for an excellent diner-style breakfast(served 7am - noon) but I don't think too many tourists give it a second look.

What a shame, for despite the fact that there was no spa, feather beds, designer furnishing, haute cuisine or other amenities that the modern tourist has come to expect/demand - hence a 'nightmare' for tourism marketing types in the Adirondacks - we had an absolutely great time.

In all honestly, you really can't build a marketing campaign around the look of a place like the CRGC&M. In fact, amongst all of the 5 letter words one might use in tourism marketing, 'motel' is very very low on the list - way below words like 'resort', 'condo', or even 'hotel'.

But, much to the consternation of the marketing crowd, the Adirondack lodging experience is chock full of motels, most of which were built in the 50s or 60s. Most have been lovingly maintained - clean, comfy beds and linens, a little landscaping with a pool, and with rates that harken back to those of a couple decades ago.

Nothing 'fancy', just a decent place to park your car and rest your weary head for the next day's outdoor Adirondack experience - amongst other things, we went canoeing, golfing, swimming, cemetery exploring (Dewey Brown is buried in the cemetery right next door to the CRGC&M) and visiting the Adirondack Museum.

Somehow, the word (and the place) 'motel' served us very well.

Update on Thursday, September 6, 2007 at 09:04AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Eric Fredine wrote; "I love these kinds of little motels - usually family run. Every little town in the Canadian prairies has one."

My response: Show me/us.

FYI ~ meet the French guys

The French guys on our trip this past weekend • click to embiggenIn my last installment - ku # 481 - Mike said; "Surrender monkies? When did they surrender? Remember the Resistance. Who bailed the Colonists out when they were being thrashed by the Brits? Where do these epithets arise? "Cheese eating, wine-swilling" — just because they know how to eat well is no cause for jealousy — get educated."

Just in case Mike thought my 'cheese-eating, wine- swilling, surrender monkey' comment was anything other than shot at the morons who coined it, let me introduce myself and my grandson, Hugo - we are 14th and 16th generation descedents of the one of the Duzine - 12 French Huguenot family heads who, in 1677, founded the village of New Paltz, NY.

Hugo and I are the descendents of Hugo Freer, whose house, built circa 1698, still stands today on Huguenot Street in New Paltz.

'nuff said about the French.

PS - the other side of my family hails from the Emerald Isle - guess that's why I love potatoes, beer, links golf and a lady named Kelleher (not necessarily in that order)

a question

Is anyone other than Kent Wiley having problems posting comments in the Guest Photographer Forum?

ku # 481 ~ a french lesson

Autumn is on the way • click to embiggenAs many of you know, I live in a place called Au Sable Forks which is at the confluence of the East and the West Branch of the Au Sable rivers where they form the Au Sable river which continues on - through Au Sable Chasm - to Lake Champlain.

That's a lot of Au Sables and, in fact, there is a lot of 'sable' (Fr. sand) here about. Many of the early settlers 'round here were French Canadians who were drawn to the area by the logging industry. Many stayed and the village is filled with many families with French surnames, although, truth be told, none bear any resemblance whatsoever to the modern day so called cheese-eating, wine- swilling, surrender monkeys that you hear so much about (let's hear it for freedom fries).

In any event, our area comes by the name Au Sable (fr. with sand) honestly.

ku # 480 ~ incredible

Monolith in the woods • click to embiggenYesterday afternoon, while attempting to gain a vantage point for a picture I wanted to make (but didn't), I came upon a steep jumbled boulder field in the woods. The boulders are at the foot of a 400-500 ft stone cliff.

The size of the field was impressive as were the boulders themselves - the one featured here is about 12 ft tall. What was equally amazing was the fact that the boulders and forest floor are covered with a 3-4 inch thick mossy carpet. The smell, the feel, the sensations were incredible. It is an altogether amazing little place in the woods. I will be back.

ku # 479 ~ getting out of town

A large shattered erratic on the Bog River • click to embiggenIt's hard to believe but an entire summer has kind of sneaked by under the radar. It seems as though I was not able to get into any kind of summer flow - way too many 'matters' to tend to (house renovations, college preparations, a few unexpected work projects and spending most of August well under the weather).

One casualty of all this is that the wife and I have not been out in the canoes together even once this summer. Now that the nest is empty, our first priority is a 3 day / 2 night canoe trip this weekend, although, the tent will house our part-time nester, Hugo.

Hugo's mom and dad (the Cinemascapist) are out of town for a wedding in Pittsburgh and then a swing over to NYC to finalize a few details for his upcoming exhibition. Aaron and his pictures are being featured in e-zine articles all over the world. It seems that nary a day goes by that doesn't include a request for an interview.

If you aren't keeping up with his work, you should be - Aaron Hobson ~ Cinemascapes. He has also posted a new picture here in the Guest Photographer Forum.

PS - The Landscapist's Stand Apart From The Crowd Award of Recognition goes to Tim, who distinguished himself over the past 2 days by being the lone first-time visitor (out of over 1,800) to leave a comment. Thank you, Tim (and, yes, our college princess has an especially spacious dorm room since her roomate was a no-show. A replacement is not likely and in 2 weeks she can call maintenance and have the extra bed and wardrobe removed which we will replace with a couch, coffe table and floor lamp.)

urban ku # 101 ~ slow down and take a minute

5 mph speed limit • click to embiggenEvery once in a while, when I check my web stats, I discover that visitors are flocking to The Landscapist in incredibile numbers. Yesterday was one of those days - over 1,000 first-time visitors and over 2,000 page loads.

As is always the case whenever this happens, the stampede is attributable to a mention (usually about something I have written) with a link to The Landscapist posted by one of the blog-o-sphere's 'biggies'. Yesterday's 'biggie' was Scott Kelby, the #1 Bestselling computer/ technology author (26 books on Photoshop, digital imaging, and technology) in the world for the past three years straight. Scott also is the editor/publisher of Photoshop User Magazine, Darkroom magazine (all about Adobe Lightroom), training director and instructor for the Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour and President National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP).

Scott's site is devoted to, you guessed it, all things Adobe Photoshop / Lightroom so it's was bit of a surprise to find the following sandwiched in all the PS/LR news, scoops and tips - I ran across this blog this past week, and I just really found the photography interesting. It’s called “The Landscapist” but it’s not your typical landscape photography site ... [T]here’s just something about their stuff I really like. Give it a look-see ...

Thanks, Scott (but you didn't say a thing about my brilliant PS work). Even more amazing is that not one of the more than 1,000 first-time visitors had anything - good, bad or indifferent - to say about anything. Not that I'm complaining. Just thought I'd mention it.

urban ku # 100 ~ a new place # 2

Life is like that sometimes • click to embiggenBeau Comeaux commented, on civilized ku # 54, that "...The far flung after-effects of the German coolness and detachment (as initially? proffered by the Bechers) has worn me down a bit as of late. The ironic pointing to empty, banal spaces has run its course for me, failing to interest or engage me."

I don't think that Beau is alone in feeling this way. While I don't think the 'coolness and detachment/ironic pointing' thing has run its course or that some very interesting work is not still being created in that genre, I have stated that "... I am emerging from a kind of modernist/postmodernist what-the-hell-is-what haze. After delving into the notions, it seems incredibly complex or equally simple depending on deep you want to go. I went deep enough to feel, at the extremes, like I was drowning in a sea of either simplistic sentimental dreck (modernism) or wretched intellectual/academic obfuscation (postmodernism).

That said, it seems that there is an emerging middle ground out there where the two cultural paradigms collide and out of the smashed particles a new stew is being brewed - perhaps a kind of post-postmodernism.

Photography-wise, a place where neither intellectual concept nor visual referent reign supreme. A place where the skeptical/questioning gaze of the camera does not descend fully into the 'end-of-the-line-everything-is-used-up' paradigm of postmodernism but rather, it creates a glimmer of it's-not-over-yet hope because, unlike radical postmodernism, the photographer actually believes that the referent matters.

A place where, even though the referent matters, the skeptical/questioning gaze of the camera never places it on an altar of idolatry that drips with sappy sentimentality. A place where the referent is addressed with a respect that preserves it's authenticity but still allows the photography-observer to move well beyond the 'actuality of the real world'.

A place where the denoted and the connoted co-exist on equal footing. A place where photography can both illustrate and illuminate."