AT LAST, WILD.

Mirror Lake Inn | Photo Credit, Brian Thibodeau

[Written by Brian Thibodeau]

For my 40th, we packed up the car with our family of seven. Left behind a small army for the house sitter: three dogs, three cats, a rabbit, a lizard, two budgies. God bless him.

We drove north to the Adirondacks. Mirror Lake Inn waited by the water. Old, dignified. Sure of its own story.

Inside, the air smelled of fire and pine. Heard the pop of wood in the lobby. Vintage snowshoes and old wooden skis hung on the walls, not for show — for memory. Heavy, cracked, still carrying a bit of mountain mud.

The sconces were elaborate. Little antlered sentinals reaching out of timber walls. They threw soft light across hunting prints, oil landscapes. The taxidermy stood quiet, proud. Not eerie — just reminders of who came first.

The library was lined with dark shelves and heavy chairs. Books worn down by other hands. A place that made you speak softer.

The staff energy. Their home was our home. been there forever. Kind. Called you by name after one day. Meant it.

At night we fished off the dock by the restaurant. The kids leaned over the rail, laughing when the fish rose under the glow, snapping at bugs. The lake swallowed the noise. Left only the water slapping wood.

In the mornings, the cold bit through your coat. It was honest. Made coffee taste stronger. We climbed Mt. Baker together. The boys raced. The girls held our hands. At the top, we stood still a while. Took in the weight of the view. Didn’t say much. Didn’t have to.

Evenings, Ashley read to the kids by the big stone fireplace. That old moose head above them looked on, gentle somehow, like he’d heard a thousand family stories before ours.

We ate well. Drank well. Slept deep in beds that felt older than us all.

I want our kids to know places like this. To learn what it means to belong to a land that has its own voice. To feel small under old trees, to climb hard and come down hungry. To see a town that protects what it has.

That trip is why we built Atlas Wild. So places like Mirror Lake Inn don’t lose their way to neon or new builds. So inns stay inns. Trails stay trails. So the smell of wood smoke, the weight of old books, the kindness of people who remember your name — all of it waits there, years from now, for someone else’s 40th.

Because if travel means anything, it’s that.