Rosslyn Redux

Tag: Swimming

  • Champlaining

    Champlaining

    A mirror morning on Lake Champlain (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Champlaining on a mirror morning (Photo: Geo Davis)

    I like to joke around with our friends, Amy Guglielmo and Brian Giebel about “Champlaining” (aka “Lake Champlaining”) when we’re puttering about on our glorious front yard: Lake Champlain. A common refrain, “Stop Champlaining!” is actually a lighthearted reminder that even on the clunkiest of days, time spent plying (or playing i/on) the waters of America’s greatest lake is a revitalizing gift.

    Swimming. Sailing. Speedboating. Windsurfing. Wakesurfing. Waterskiing. Bonfiring… (And even when we’re fortunate enough to have a winter freeze so that we can skate and cross-country ski on the lake!) Champlaining is a term of lighthearted gratitude for the immense good fortune that so many of us enjoy in, on, and near the greatest of American lakes, Lake Champlain.

    Mucking through late midwinter strikes me as the optimal moment to share the distinct joy of champlaining with a quick photo essay.

    No better place to start than one of my personal favorites, sailing.

    Perhaps some scenic day-boating?

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CgPpo-UOsM5/

    Another personal favorite, wakesurfing (and acting like a landing condor!)

    End-of-day waterskiing, sailing, surfing offers a unique magic (but paying attention to boating regulations vis-à-vis sunset which I might have inadvertently let slip here…)

    Sundown Surf on Lake Champlain, August 10, 2022 (Photo: Susan Bacot-Davis)
    Champlaining with a Sundown Wakesurf, August 10, 2022 (Photo: Susan Bacot-Davis)

    Celebrating a peak-of-summer day with a sensational sundown surf… in one of world’s the most spectacular spots… This is Champlaining! (Source: Sundown Surf)

    Hammocking lakeside might very well be one of the best ways to wind down a week.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CjbaQb4Po9t/

    Followed with a beach bonfire. NOW we’re starting to explore the range of possibilities…

    Champlaining with a Lakeside Bonfire, September 27, 2014 (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Champlaining with a Lakeside Bonfire, September 27, 2014 (Photo: Geo Davis)

    To dilate your look into the joys of champlaining I suggest you check out the Instagram hashtag.

    Champlaining Haiku

    In-on Lake Champlain,
even the clunkiest of days,
revitalize bliss.
— Geo Davis

    Lake Champlain Official

    If my photo essay peppered with editorial asides isn’t exactly what you were hoping to find when the mysterious internauts delivered you here, then I’ll step aside and offer you a by-the-books springboard to more official data points (with a tiny tout for Champlain arts and culture.)

    Rosslyn is perched on the Adirondack Coast of the greatest of lakes, Lake Champlain.

    A freshwater lake located between New York State on the west, Vermont on the east, and Canada’s Quebec province on the north, Lake Champlain is approximately 120 miles (193 km) long, 12 miles (19 km) wide, and 400 feet (122 m) at its deepest trench. The sixth-largest lake in the United States by volume, Lake Champlain contains 71 islands. (Source: LCLT.org) Source waters include the Boquet, Ausable, and Saranac rivers in New York and the Richelieu, Missisquoi, and Lamoille rivers in Vermont. Contrary to a common misperception, the lake flows northward into the Richelieu River (and eventually into the St. Lawrence River.)

    Inspiring artists, musicians, and vacationers for centuries, Lake Champlain is a creative and cultural epicenter for the Northeast. To get in the mood, how about a singalong of Alfred Bryan and Albert Gumble’s “On Lake Champlain”? (Check out the lyrics and audio recording.)

    Named for the French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, who was the first European to map the region in 1609, the waterway quickly became an important transportation and trade artery. The Battle of Valcour (October 11, 1776) during the American Revolutionary War and the Battle of Plattsburgh (September 6-11, 1814) during the War of 1812 wove the majestic lake into early American history. Today, Lake Champlain is a popular destination for vacationing, swimming, boating, fishing, and camping. (Source: Lake Champlain)

    Enough with official. Back to anecdotal, whimsical, and romantic! I’ll wrap up with a couple of delightful vintage Lake Champlain postcards. Enjoy.

    Yachting on Lake Champlain (Source: Vintage Postcard)
    Yachting on Lake Champlain (Source: Vintage Postcard)
    Sunset on Lake Champlain (Source: Vintage Postcard)
    Sunset on Lake Champlain (Source: Vintage Postcard)

  • February Swim in Lake Champlain

    February Swim: Griffin "polar bear plunging" in late February 2017. (Source: Geo Davis)
    February Swim: Griffin’s late February 2017 “polar bear plunge”. (Source: Geo Davis)

    February swim, anyone? In Lake Champlain?!?!

    [pullquote]Griffin “polar bear plunges” in 35° Lake Champlain… mid-winter swimming bliss![/pullquote]

    Griffin, our now almost nine year old Labrador Retriever, was thrilled with to chase some throw-toys in the chilly lake today despite the fact that it’s February 19 and the water temperature is exactly three days above freezing… 35° of mid-winter swimming bliss!

    Here’s a fuzzy but joyful glimpse into one of about a dozen of Griffin’s “polar bear plunges”.

    We just returned to Essex and were quite excited about the recent snowfall. Last year’s virtually snowless winter was a bummer. No skiing in winter followed by alarmingly low lake levels due to unusually low levels of spring melt and runoff. Up until the last couple of weeks this winter has been similarly snow-free, so having a chance to spend the morning cross country skiing around Rosslyn’s woods, trails, and meadows with my bride and dog was a welcome change. And the perfect warm-up for Griffin’s February swim…

  • Almost Logical

    What if? Wondering what life would be like living full-time in the Champlain Valley...
    What if? Wondering what life would be like living full-time in the Champlain Valley…

    Within minutes we were tripping over each other, drunk with excitement, imagining one whimsical “What if…” scenario after another. No filter, no caution. Our reveries flitted from one idyllic snapshot to another.

    “What if I finally sat down and finished my novel?” After dawdling self indulgently for a dozen years – writing, rewriting, discarding, rewriting, shuffling, reinventing – my novel had evolved from failed poetry collection to short story collection to novel to a tangle of interconnecting narratives that loosely paralleled my life since graduating from college. Too much evolution. Too little focus. But what if I made time to sit down and knock it out? Reboot. Start over. Find the story. Write it down. Move on.

    “What if you weren’t sitting in front of your computer all day? Every day?” Susan asked, returning to a common theme. “What if you went outside and played with Tasha? Took her swimming or hiking or skiing every day?”

    “What if all three of us went swimming or hiking or skiing every day? What if Tasha and I went jogging along Lakeshore Road instead of the East River?”

    We could waterski and windsurf for half the year instead of just two or three months, starting in May with drysuits and finishing in the end of October. We could sail the Hobie Cat more instead of letting it collect spider webs on the Rock Harbor beach. I could fly fish the Boquet and Ausable Rivers in the afternoon while Tasha snoozed on the bank. We could join Essex Farm, the local CSA, supporting a local startup while eating healthy, locally grown and raised food. I could grow a vegetable garden, an herb garden, an orchard. Susan could work for an architecture firm in Burlington and volunteer at the animal shelter. We could buy season passes to Whiteface and downhill ski several days a week. We could cross country ski and snowshoe and bike and rollerblade and kayak and canoe and hike, and maybe I would start rock climbing again. And how much more smoothly the Lapine House renovation would be if we were on-site every day answering questions, catching mistakes before it was too late.

    “I could interview candidates for Hamilton!” Susan said. She had recently become an alumni trustee for her alma mater, and her already high enthusiasm had skyrocketed. She had become a walking-talking billboard for the college. “You know how much more valuable it would be to interview candidates up here? There are tons of alumni interviewers in Manhattan, but in Westport? In Essex? In Elizabethtown?”

    Suspended in lukewarm bathwater, our collective brainstorm leap frogging forward, it all started to make a strange sort of sense, to seem almost logical.