Smoke billowed out the factory, reaching towards the sky like a dark soul for it’s freedom. Cars blared their horns as the sound reached the buildings on either side of the cement road and beyond. A huge crowd waited near the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for the red hand to yield a white walking man. There wasn’t a tree in sight, and the only rustling sound was coming from a poor homeless man digging in the trash for food. This sight might be familiar to people living in cities. And for me, it was the only sight I was used to for years. That was until the day my family announced our trip to Lake George.
I awoke to someone shaking me. I opened my eyes lazily as I stretched, grumbling something about wanting more sleep. When I was fully awake, I gasped and took in a breath of fresh, crisp air. We were finally in Lake George! Below us was a fresh dirt road while around us stood dark, mysterious forests filled with chirping. The horizon stretched out and touched the mountain tops in the distance, which were all but grey silhouettes. I could make out a few cabins nestled into the mountain’s forests in the distance, and saw smoke rising from one spot. I knew that natural forest fires weren’t really a positive thing, but I couldn’t help not be impressed by it. This untouched nature was amazing to me, and I took it in with new eyes. The only world I had known before was polluted air, cement roads and grimy sidewalks full of old buildings. For me, this was like heaven.

I sat on the tall pig, swinging my legs back and forth as I waited for my parents to finish getting their stuff from the car. It wasn’t a real pig, of course. But it fit in with the store behind it. My parents finally caught up to me.
“Oscar’s,” my dad said, smiling. ”It was highly recommended.”
We entered inside and all I could say was “whoa.” Inside were racks upon racks of meat and cheese products. They varied from ham to bacon to chicken to jerky and from cheddar cheese to Swiss to mozzarella. In front of us stood a rack full of pig-shaped sweets. Being the ten year old I was, I headed over there first as it was obviously the most important thing in a premium smokehouse. Nevertheless, I wasn’t disappointed. Their bacon (hickory smoked for more than 18 years) was the best I ever tasted.
Soon we were back in the resort, swimming in the lake and sunbathing on their upper docks? Before I knew it, it was getting late outside as the sky turned into a painting of orange, pink and purple hues. Foggy clouds drifted lazily across the scene, intensifying the colors. We decided to go to the arcade in Lake George Village. It ended up being street after street of shops, as you might see in New York, but there was something different about it. Yes, the atmosphere may have contributed to it, but I didn’t see any Victoria’s Secret or Juicy Couture stores here. These were all individual family-owned stores. As I was walking throughout the streets, I noticed another thing. Everything was so … slow. There were no worries about school or homework. Life seemed to have given people a break from problems and worries. A lot of the stores ended up being souvenir shops full of shirts, key chains and magnets. In the end, we found an arcade to go to. It was full of beeping sounds, flashing lights and tickets pouring out of game machines like a waterfall that never ended. As a ten year old, I remember how I ran in like a crazy woman, screaming with joy and running. Now, as a mature 14 year old, I still do.
When I went into the arcade all I saw were kids running around with tickets trailing behind them like capes. One of the first games I saw was a bee themed one. What happened was you had to control the net at the end of the stick to catch as many bees as you could to put them into the honey jar. A wind blew from under them, making the game a dizzy display of yellow and black stripes. Another game was a huge spin-the-wheel with a bulky lever. I remember complaining about how expensive it was to play (a dollar). I can recall having to jump up and hang from the lever like a monkey because as a ten year old, it was almost impossible to possess such strength to pull that lever down. Other games involved dropping coins down chutes to push other coins off the ledge or rolling a coin into a spinning wheel to see on what number you’d land ( that number was equal to the amount of tickets you got). It made the hours trickle by and made me want to never leave.
When I was finally done winning all my tickets and trading it in for a tub of candy and bracelets, I walked outside and I remember looking up. That was the first time I saw the stars. Sure, I had seen a star or two back in New York, but with all the pollution going on and the airplanes passing by, that was all I got. I knew that these were genuine stars not to be confused with airplanes. I understood that here, everything lay undisturbed. Even the infinite sky.