"Towards you, towards you, pull it towards you," my father yells to my mom, referring to the tiller that sits on her lap. We’re aboard my dad’s 22-foot Catalina, sailing at a good 10-knot clip across the cobalt waters of Lake George on our way back to his dock. Mom’s steering, dad’s barking orders, and I’m on the bow of the boat, ready to jump onto terra firma, but first I have to listen to my parent’s banter, a routine I’ve witnessed far too many times.
“What the hell are you doing? Aim for the house,” my dad bellows, pointing to a small white house that stands on the hillside above our dock. My father’s voice always seems to rise a notch or two in volume every time he steps foot into his sailboat. That’s usually what happens to former Lieutenants in the Navy. They resign their commission in the military, buy a small boat of their own, and quickly ascend to the rank of Admiral. Nevertheless, my mom always remains as cool as the water in this lake, easily gliding the boat into the dock without a scratch. Once the lines are tied, she stands up, and ends with the tag line, “not bad for a Bronx girl.” “Yeah, not bad,” my father mutters back, forgetting that Mom also taught him how to drive.
Those two paragraphs are the first words I ever wrote on Lake George, for a magazine called Endless Vacation back in 1996. Both my parents are gone, but I have incredible memories of our family sailing, paddling, and boating this 32-mile gem in the Adirondacks. And I continue to create new memories. This week, I’m traveling with my brother Jim as we kayak around the Sagamore, boat with Ron Miller aboard his 1971 Lyman, and take a paddlewheeler cruise aboard The Mohican.
I’ve been sailing the waters of Lake George before I learned to walk, or so I’m told. Growing up in these sylvan surroundings, I took its beauty for granted; the verdant mountainside that slopes to the lake’s edge on either side, the pine-studded islands that provide perfect anchorages for boaters, the narrow width that’s easily mistaken for a long rambling river. Working as a travel writer, I’ve had the good fortune to visit many of the world’s most famous lakes—Tahoe, Como in Italy, Taupo in New Zealand, Lucerne in Switzerland, but given the choice, I’ll take Lake George on a weekday (on summer weekends, the influx of motorboats and jet skies makes the lake seem a lot smaller). It’s the reason why “Sailing Lake George” topped my list of “5 Family Adventures Not Soon Forgotten,” my most recent article on the lake in a March issue of The Boston Globe.
There’s no need to be caught in summer traffic on the 105-mile-long Skyline Drive when you can have the mesmerizing Shenandoah National Park roadway to yourself in the shoulder season. After the 2-hour drive from DC, drop your bags off at the Skyland Resort, the premier Shenandoah lodge originally open in 1888. Perfectly perched at the 3,680-foot apogee of Skyline Drive, you have exquisite vistas of Shenandoah Valley. The famous Skyline Drive twists and turns atop the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains, offering numerous opportunities to stop and take pictures or go on a walk. At Mile 42.6 is one of Shenandoah’s signature trails, White Oak Canyon. The five-mile trail snakes through towering hemlocks into a deep and narrow gorge that’s home to six waterfalls. More than half of the plant species in Shenandoah are wildflowers, so be on the lookout for the bluets, pink azaleas, and the fragrant white flowers of the mountain laurel. 
With a fantastic network of trail and huts, and a long history and appreciation of running, Switzerland is a trail runner’s dream. Mountain runners have been weaving their way along alp paths for decades, and are practically exalted here. Few people know these trails better than Doug Mayer, founder of Run the Alps. Mayer wrote me last week, claiming he has 
A family favorite, this 600-acre 
By now, you may have witnessed (and hopefully experienced) the beauty of being in a TSA PreCheck lane at airport security. In blissful pre-9/11 fashion, passengers in the PreCheck line don’t remove shoes, belts, or jackets, and have the luxury of keeping their liquids and laptops inside their bags. The standard metal detector is used instead of the invasive full-body scanner. On average, security agents can process twice as many passengers in PreCheck line than the normal lines.
We have another