As you begin to get close to your destination, your eyes are drawn to a massive expanse of steel sticking up into the heavens, just off the side of the roadway. It’s the 90 and 110-meter ski jump, built for the 1980 winter Olympics. Everyone’s first impression of it is, “Who would be and crazy enough to jump from it’s cloud splitting heights.”

Driving through the last lush valley, before entering the outer limits of the town, you now find yourself between many of the highest and magnificent peaks of the Adirondack chain. In early summer, the snow topped peaks glisten in the midday sun, and the cool refreshing mountain breezes ruffle the hearty wildflowers. The craggy mountain peaks seem to poke at the puffy white cumulus clouds.

After a few more short and anxious miles you now enter this tiny secluded village, built between and around the clean and beautiful Mirror Lake, and adjacent Lake Placid. Whiteface Mountain looms large as its base protrudes upwards of a mile from this shimmering, vast mountain lake, whose cavernous depth has never been able to be measured. This enchanting and old world town has the allure and look of a Swiss ski village, the result of the early settler’s heritage.

Modern resorts dot the grassy hillsides, preserving the quaintness and tranquil ambiance of the village proper. Delicious cuisine can be obtained at many of the high quality restaurants the line the main thoroughfare. The pleasing pungent smells escaping from these establishments and the crisp mountain air gives one a hearty and ravenous appetite. The many craft shops and elegant, upscale, and expensive clothing boutiques, lend for an interesting nighttime amble. As you leave the main area of the town, you can continue the walk around Mirror Lake, its splendor enhanced by the lights of the town shimmering off its crystal clear waters. As you saunter along on this stroll, you pass between Lake Placid and Mirror Lake separated only by a narrow road and an open grass field. Many devoted and hearty adventurers carry their canoes between these two stunning and pristine bodies of waters for a peaceful and relaxing day of boating.

Just a few short miles from town many other adventures can be had, depending on where one’s scale or degree of adventure may lie. . Many formidable well-manicured golf courses, with breath taking views, offer a challenge to even the finest aficionados of the sport. There are also many mountain trails, some extremely treacherous and non- forgiving, available for the enthusiastic and fervent hiker. Many of them who thought their skills were well honed were lost in the great expanse of the wilderness either to starvation or carnivorous wild animals. In summer you can also ride the ski lift up Whiteface Mountain, which lends a superb view of the vast, rugged and stunning terrain, which is characteristic of this region.

The clear, crisp mountain nights lend a glorious site of the multitudes of stars never seen in the smog filled cities and even relatively clean rural areas. The Moons enhanced brightness seems to illuminate and draw attention to the splendid constellations that many never view in their true majesty.

Its popularity amongst travelers has never reached great levels, probably because of its relative isolation or people’s perception that it’s to rugged for modern day spoiled vacationers. Many people don’t value beauty and splendor, seeking out fun and connivance in its place. Maybe that’s for the best, as it leaves its pristine beauty for the true and ardent lovers of nature and its marvelous surroundings. Once you have discovered this truly wondrous town and adored its astounding sites, it is forever imbedded in your psyche. For when you need a break from the mundane and tedious challenges of life, Lake Placid will be forever ingrained in your heart.

This is worth reading. Be sure to read to the end. You will be amazed.

Let’s hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs . The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal Washington, DC offices.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA.

As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United Statescontain active ingredients made in other countries. In our ind ependent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some
of the most popular drugs sold in America

The data below speaks for itself.

Celebrex: 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin: 10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30, 306%

Keflex: 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%

Lipitor: 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasc: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%

Paxil: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of gene ral active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%

Prevacid: 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingr edients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%

Prilosec : 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%

Prozac: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%

Tenormin: 50 mg
Consumer price (100 table ts): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%

Vasotec: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%

Xanax: 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%

Zestril: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809%

Zithromax: 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1, 482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%

Zocor: 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%

Zoloft: 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on. It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen’s on every corner.

On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more . Yes, that’s not a typo…..thre e thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills.

The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are ’saving’ $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.

I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a ‘membership ‘ type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is true)

I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.