Some places just feel familiar. This seems especially so on first visits to much-imagined places. And so it was for me last week when visiting the Adirondacks town of Blue Mountain Lake.

I have to admit to being smitten. I loved everything. The hiking, the boating, the 'Forever Wild' wilderness and deep and wonderful human history as seen in Blue Mountain Lake's incomparable Museum of The Adirondacks--and it all felt very, very familiar. Oddly so for my first trip to the region.

My guess is that the Adirondacks are just one of those American places that inevitably seep through the pores of one's cultural skin. There is a comforting sense of the 'old fashioned'. The decorative stick topdressing; the ubiquitous canoe-on-top cars; the flags and flowers; more road-side efficiency cottages than one could ever hope to count; moose; pack baskets and everywhere as-far-as-the-eye-can-see-flat-out-gorgeous-drop-dead-heartrendingly-beautiful natural scenery.

Then there is the astounding vision that created this state park--properly called the New York Forest Preserve--nearly 150 years ago and the stewardship that maintains it's 6.2 million acres today. But one example of the continued success of this original vision and continued stewardship is that the water in many of the regions 3000 lakes is still clean enough to be used unfiltered even as as many as 8 million people a year come through the park's lands. It feels good to be here in such a balanced place.

Some places speak best for themselves though so I have probably said enough. The pictures can do the rest.

Hover for captions--and go when you can...