Lake Minnewaska, NY 2024

This morning, we visited Lake Minnewaska, which is located on the Shawangunk Ridge, about two hours north of NYC.

Interesting factoid – Minnewaska, meaning good water, comes from the language of the Dakota (Sioux) nation, which was not local to the Hudson Valley region. In 1875 it was named by Alfred H. Smiley (obviously not a native American), one of the founders of a local resort.

Today’s activity, besides taking in local scenery, was to take the “easy” 2-mile hike around the lake.

There was way more elevation climbing up and down than I realized which took all of the energy that I had. It was quite exhilarating.

Not being in a rush, we took 80 minutes to enjoy the so-called 40-minute trek.

Then we drove another 90 minutes through rural loveliness for a two-night stay with my extremely close childhood friend, Sheila Silver and her husband, John Feldman. We lost touch since high school (over 50 years), but reconnected last summer. But that’s a  story for tomorrow.