Thursday August 7

Today we climbed a five mile hike (two and a half miles each way) , and it was up mountain! It was in Woodstock, New York. First we had to go on a ten min. drive to get up to the right height. From there we started the hike. After a half hour we had a "drink break". Not long after that we came across a rock sticking vertically out of the ground over a valley. There was a space were there was no grass or weeds, so we had to go on it. It was cool. We kept on walking for a really long time until we came across a old hotel  ruins. The photo above shows the entrance, or what used to be one, that is. If you look carefully to the left of Noah, you can see a circular shallow well, I thought it used to be a fountain, now there is a tree growing out of it. Inside the only thing left standing was some stairs, two rooms and a fire place. A sign said to watch out for snakes! There was a second part to it that still had the window frames, not the glass, of course. We looked into one of the window of the second one, and guess what we see......A bathtub! A tree was practically growing out of the bathtub, it was next to it, actually. After that we moved on along the path, we still had more to go! After about half a mile we made it to the top. There was a fire tower you could climb up to look out. Mom climbed up fine at the beginning of the tower, but when she was three steps away she started whimpering, she is scared of heights, you know.We climbed down to go to the overlook. The overlook was a big rock, with no railing! People inscribed there names into the rock, the oldest one was from 1910. We snapped a few pictures, then left. About half way down I heard a slithering noise. Looking over to the side of the path I saw a thick yellow line with black tip. Snake! I yelped and pointed it out to every one. Every ones saw it except for Sophie. Dad turned back to look at it after we walked away a few feet to see if it was still there. It turns out it was a rattle snake. Thankfully it didn't rattle. When we finished the hike we stopped by the Buddhist Temple nearby to check it out. After that we went to a few stores, then came home. We are having burngers for dinner and  S'mores for dessert, yum!
By Abby