Back Home Again 4/9/24

 Hello, Hello!

How are you?  I am doing well.  We are back home again after our weekend get-away with Colin & Mailing and Bonnie & Zhongren.  What a nice time.  We did find out late Thursday that the original house Mailing had booked in Forestburgh, NY had cancelled our reservation!  The storms Wednesday knocked out the power to the house and they were not sure it would be back on by Friday afternoon when we were due to arrive.  Fortunately, AirBnB worked with Mailing to locate another available place.  THIS is where we ended up for the weekend.  A lovely place in Athens, NY (quite a bit further than the original plan - we were just South of Albany, NY).

We drove up with C&M; B&Z Drove separately.  Traffic was a little heavy on the NY Thruway - lots and lots of folks heading North for the Eclipse.  It was a bit damp and grey when we arrived.  C&M cooked dinner the first night - bangers and mash which was delicious.  Colin grilled both bratwurst and andouille sausage; Mailing made the mashed potatoes, peas and green beans.  That first night we opted for a fire inside.

Saturday was still very overcast and pretty chilly.  But after a leisurely (lazy) morning, we drove into town to a nature preserve for a walk.  However it was way too muddy and chilly to be enjoyable, so we continued on into Hudson, NY and went to The Spotty Dog - what a neat place.  Lots of books, great beer and even art supplies in the upper level.  So many of you would have loved this place!

B&Z were on kitchen duty that night and we made dumplings (so many dumplings)!

We also had some Chinese cauliflower and a salad with cucumbers, black mushrooms and rice noodles.  Everything was so good!  Even though everything was still wet and damp outside, C&M managed to get a fire going in the fire pit and we sat out there for a little while before the hot tub was put to good use.

Sunday was another quiet morning.  The sun was shining brightly, so again we headed out after lunch.  We visited the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and walked around the grounds.  Then we decided to go back into Hudson to explore the town a bit.  For those of you familiar (Bonny & Dee), Hudson is like New Hope was a few decades ago - lots of antique shops, art galleries and fun stores.  My favorite sign spotted on a lamppost:

Sunday night was our night to cook, so we made BBQ Shrimp (New Orleans style) and had Italian bread and a big salad to go with it.  I was stuffed!!

We had another big fire outside and enjoyed sitting around and talking.  Monday we got up and left by 9 a.m.  C&M and we stopped in New Hope for a wonderful lunch (warm enough that we sat outside!!).  We were back at our home in time for the eclipse, but even though we were in the 90% totality spot, it did not really get all that dark.

Mabel survived our going away.  Rob and Eva (neighbors) came over to feed her and let her in and out.  At one point Eva texted me a picture of Mabel and a bag of treats that had been clawed open!!  And when we walked in, we saw that Mabel had apparently been working hard to unroll ALL the paper towels!

Today is all about replenishing food, doing some laundry and general catching up.  I didn't read blogs while I was gone, so I will attempt to catch up on those as well.  I hope you are all doing well!