Everywhere I go, I leave part of my heart behind. Every place I've lived is dear to me, every place our children have lived, many places I have visited. I live in Florida, but there's a bit of "home" scattered all over the world.
The High Peak Region of New York's Adirondack Mountains holds one of the deepest and dearest places in my heart, though I never lived there and have no family near there anymore. Early memories are strong.
Hiking in the Adirondacks was one of my father's favorite pasttimes when he worked for the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York. He often went with his colleagues from work—Ted Dietze, Howard Kasch, and Gabe Kron come to mind—and once marriage and children entered the picture, we were swirled into the mix. Some of my best memories have the Adirondack Mountains stamped indelibly upon them.
Hence my excitement when a Facebook friend posted this trailer about an upcoming film, Heaven on Earth: The Adirondacks. Following the link led me to realize that the film is being made by renowned nature photographer Joe LeFevre, one of whose Adirondack photographs graces our wall, thanks to a mutual friend.
Well, grrrr. The two ways I know to embed a video in my blog have failed me. What works for YouTube should also work for Vimeo, but I can't make it do so and am out of time at the moment. But the links work.
Heaven on Earth: The Adirondacks (official trailer).
The trailer itself is beautiful; the whole film will be stunning, I'm sure.
What I'm not so sure about is how great an idea it is to give the Adirondacks more publicity. Even 50 years ago the mountains were having a hard time dealing with the tramp of so many tourist feet, and I understand that hikers are no longer able to enjoy what I consider to be one of the best parts of hiking there, second only to the views. We always brought canteens of water with us, but once we were up on the mountain took the earliest opportunity to dump the contents and fill up with water from the mountain streams—the very best water I've ever tasted. Maybe I miss that even more than the scenery, since photography can capture something of the latter.
Well, even though you can't taste the water, be sure to take three minutes and taste LeFevre's artwork.
As soon as I saw the Facebook link to your post, I guessed what it would be. : )
Joe had one of his videos in the Smithsonian recently since it won an award. A few years ago, he had a still photo exhibited there. I went with two of Claudia's kids to see it when I was visiting them. He does amazing stuff.
