Secluded in penumbral light under pines and hardwoods that date back to centuries past, and laid out in a way that betrayed the planners of a pre-automobile, farming society; the chatter of birds and squirrels on all sides, and the buzz of card games and low conversation from the broad, wooden decks flanking footpaths: to visit Gretna is to go back in time by about a century, to the late 1800s and the Chatauqua movement.

The Adirondack forest looks different when you’re not hiking a blazed trail, when the trees crowd in on all sides, when nothing is worn before your footsteps, when your destination is out of sight and will remain so until the final moment. By the time we emerge from forest and climb the last hundred meters to the rocky peak we’re soaked, but it’s worth it: the view of Blue Mountain Lake and the nested ridges of Adirondack forest trailing off over the horizon is lovely – and for me, unprecedented. I look at Dave, who has gotten an idea, and following his gaze I get my compass out of my bag’s top pocket. It’s a straight shot down to nearby Tirell Pond (and then the trail), but there’s no trail leading there. We’re going to hike the old way, using our backwoods skills, our intuition, and by dipping into our reservoir of luck.

In the early 1990s, I associated the Adirondacks with freedom almost indiscriminately. Upstate New York was my stomping ground, and when I tired of the Fingerlakes, real wilderness awaited just a few hundred miles to the northeast. In the Adirondacks you could truly get away from the raging masses, classwork, and society. You could get yourself off the map. Hell, you could even get hurt.. That was its beauty, and I loved it. Amazing, then, that it took me over twenty years to return. The lesson here is that there is absolutely no telling where life will take you, so don't make too many plans.

I returned from Indonesia in the summer of 1994, and spent a lonely year in an unlikely place: Lititz, Pennsylvania. That I would find myself in Pennsyvlania was unexpected, but this quiet corner of Amish Country was lovely and enchanting. It was Speedwell Forge, an artificial lake built in the 1960s and the well-loved fishing hole of a generation of Central Pennsylvanians. More than once I canoed around its perimeter, scouring its surrounding hillsides for signs of deer and searching in the wetlands for Heron and Ibis. So I was stunned when I returned in 2012 to find it gone.