The Sweeet Spot

I drove for nearly an hour on quiet roads through the northernmost part of the Adirondack Park. T-shirt shops and twiggy Great Camps are scarce around here—along with nearly everything but the occasional cluster of tidy raised ranches and mobile homes of every vintage, with miles of sprawling green acres between. It’s pretty country, but by the time I got to Dannemora I desperately needed to see a man about a horse; the familiar white sign with a maroon flourish was a welcome intrusion on the scenery.

I entered the squat brick building, passing a basket of plastic-wrapped donuts and buttered hard rolls en route to the lavatory, which was wallpapered in the same bucolic farm scene as every loo in every Stewart’s from Kerhonkson to Rouses Point.

That’s the thing with chains—for better or worse, you always know exactly what