On the Road Again: Upstate NY

Before the weather got so humid that we couldn't leave the house without a fine misting of sweat, we made it out of the city. We didn't know at the time it was going to be our last trip out before fall officially fell. Striking up northwest, we aimed for High Point State Park, in New Jersey. It contains a part of the Appalachian Trail. It was a lovely hike, up over High Point (the highest "mountain" in NJ - East Coast mountains are different than West Coast mountains. I maintain the West Coast alone has 'real' mountains). We climbed the ridge, a sudden quick ascent with a lovely tree cover, hiked across the bouldered ridge, and then half skidded, half fell, and kind of rockclimbed (without gear) down the other side - on the "trail," it must be said - to the lake. We turned around at the lake, feeling a little cheated by the fact that there's a road for cars, campers and boats to come in without working themselves over the ridge like we did.


Back in the car, we headed back into New York state towards the Catskills. Driving along the gorgeous, winding Delaware, we stopped to see an early bridge by John Roebling, the German-born engineer who, later in his career, designed the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge was beautiful, beautiful enough that E managed to lose his wallet in the parking lot.

Of course, we didn't realize we were short some identification and purchasing power until we made it to our B & B, the Pura Vida outside of Bethel, NY.

The B&B was off an alley, on a creek, with a lovely hammock - peaceful. We were a little thrown by the teenagers who were staffing the place in the owner's absence, who despite their sweetness made us feel like babysitters. The TV and internet, which were "for guests" to use "any time" were always dominated by them, and we had to ask them to get off the phone to use it to call out (no cell reception!) to cancel all of E's cards. They had no recommendations for dinner either, so E and I tried a bbq place with horrible food (if driving through Bethel, do not put any south in your mouth!) but a lovely view of the lake. When we got home, they asked where we had been, and upon hearing, said, "Oh that place is awful." Well, it's why we asked you before we left, but ... ok...still some lessons about hospitality to be learned here. Not feeling comfortable watching bad Lifetime TV with the teenage boys and their lady dates, E and I went upstairs and hid out, taking a luxurious bath in the great bathtub and then playing Trivial Pursuit. To the place's credit, the owner did upgrade us for free as her other guests hadn't made it. We thank her for that! Our privacy upstairs was much needed, as the teenagers got into a shouting fight shortly after 11p and we were thankful to have a locked door and some stairs between us & them.


Sunday was not as gorgeous as Saturday, but lovely in a mournful, autumnal way. After our teen hosts made us breakfast of eggs and about 30 pieces of toast, we went driving through the Beaverkill Valley in the Catskills, and made it one third of a soggy hike around Alder Lake before turning back (too many piles of bear poop means there are bears nearby)!

Alder Lake has an abandoned mansion on its shores.

We finished the day off with a lovely meal and a drink at the Dancing Cat Saloon. Our waitress was cheery and positive, and we enjoyed the rustic, quirky atmosphere as well as the sandwiches and healthy pub food made on local Flour Power Bakery bread!

The Dancing Cat Saloon in Bethel was the best food we had in the area. I highly recommend it; if you're ever in the area, stop by - the waitress is charming, the food healthy and delicious, and the live music vibrates the wood floor so you can feel the beat in your feet.

I Dream (Read) of Africa...

My inborn wanderlust has struck again. I realized recently that for the first time in 20 years, I have been on the same continent for 12 consecutive months. This fact makes me itchy. With no relief in sight, and no trips planned (other than the honeymoon that will happen after the impossible-to-time wedding), I have resorted to the NYPL and Nancy Pearl. I have dusted off my little-used library card, a vestige of a former, no-longer-up-to-date Manhattan address, and invested 30 minutes on the NYPL website requesting Nancy Pearl's Book Lust recommendations be sent to the Harlem branch for my rapid consumption. I read a lot. I always have; this is a leftover habit of a youth spent traveling the world in my mind before I started traveling it in my body. E is still amazed at how fast I can read.

I devoured Francesca Marciano's Rules of the Wild in three days of train rides. Her Italian narrator's quirks were eerily reminiscent of my own, and her search for a home and place to belong in the wild, unknowable, ever-changing Kenya parallel my own hunt for a room of my own (so to speak). Pearl describes this book as a love story set in 90s Africa, among wealthy and self-indulgent white society. I would add, it is a bleak, if honest, portrayal of white Nairobi society. But it really is a love story, set in an insider's world, and detailed with the set of a semi-nostalgic African lifestyle, but at its heart, is a story about love and the search for belonging. As someone who belongs nowhere, I found it dizzyingly real, and as I grew further engrossed with the story, it became difficult to separate fact from fiction. As with any good story, I was sad to let Esme go.

Continuing in the same geographic if not thematic vein, my next Pearl recommendation is The Ukimwi Road by Dervla Murphy. At sixty years old, Murphy decided to bike solo through Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Her account is brutally honest, sharing the flies and smells and sour meals - and her daily counts of Tusker beers (now familiar because of Marciano); she does not romanticize Africa, or what it is to be a white woman traveling alone there. While she is critical of the white intervention in Africa, she does not question of the fraught side effects of Western medical superiority or probe assumptions of Western feminism as the ultimate liberation (so far). The work quickly becomes about AIDs, as Murphy cycles through AIDs-ravaged villages in the 90s as the epidemic was on the rise, and before drugs were widely available that mitigated the effects (even for white patients) of what her acquaintances call "the slim disease." It is depressing that even in recent years, with the time that has elapsed since the book's publishing, a cure has not been found and the disease continues to devour. Murphy recounts the continual pleas for help of people she comes across in her travels: they assume she is rich because she is not African and traveling there, because she has a bike, because she is white. They assume she can help, they offer her their children to take with her, ask for money, request drugs. Her contribution is publishing a book to an audience who knows little of living with this disease, a trifling offering to those she meets but an important one for those who have not seen this disease at work.

I am enjoying living vicariously through the irreverent, spicy Murphy, and plotting how to make some voyages of my own very soon. My next Pearl recommendation, waiting for me at the Harlem library, is an account of the founding of Australia...I seem to have a white postcolonial guilt thing going for places that are depicted as rugged, lawless, unconquerable...

Lately...

I have been thinking about writing blogs, and not writing them. I haven't felt very inspired, and rather than "water down" the quality of my blog, I have elected to be silent. Here's a summary of the blog entries I contemplated:
Book review of Aravind Adiga's 2nd novel, in the wake of White Tiger, entitled Between the Assassinations. Verdict: it's no White Tiger, but an interesting novel nonetheless.
Book review of Leila Marouane's The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris. Verdict: meh....
Restaurant review: Sylvia's in Harlem. Soul Food. Deeeeelicious. See proof below!



This week I had the gift of seeing my city through fresh eyes, as E's Aussie friend visited us and America for the first time. Walking with a tourist, I felt authorized to take pictures and act like a tourist (except when it comes to knowing my way around the subway and walking like a New Yorker). It is easy to forget how imposing and beautiful and crazy New York is, how full of lives of all kinds, how deep this place is...
I also had the blessing of going places I don't usually go - like Yankee Stadium. I can't normally find an excuse to ride the train all the way to the Bronx, but now...I can say I've seen the stadium (the game's cheapest tickets were $135, though, so...I wasn't able to go inside said arena.


Later that night, we enjoyed the sumptious delights of Nyonya's Malaysian cuisine in Little Italy, wandering up through SoHo on a lazy warm summer night.


The next day, we tried Bonnie's Grill in Park Slope, sampling their delicious burgers.

I also tried watermelon beer, because hey, it's summer, and I love watermelon and beer. It was definitely a girly beer, with a bit of sticky sweet melony aftertaste. Not bad.
Today was the real tourist day, however: taking the (free!) Staten Island ferry so we could get a good look at Manhattan's gorgeous skyline, we then lunched at Arturo's in SoHo. Then up to Washington Square Park, where kids and adults alike took advantage of the fountain's water on a scorching July afternoon. Next, to Central Park, where tourists walked or rode in pedicabs, hustlers hollered, "Cold refreshing waters $1 only," hauling coolers on their backs, a group of Haitian drummers and trumpeteers entertained a crowd of spectators eager to document their performance, bikers and runners working out, newlyweds posing for photos near Bethesda Fountain, and...us.







It feels nice to be a traveler again, or to see with new eyes and appreciation...It makes me all the more excited for my upcoming travel to San Francisco, Yosemite, and Las Vegas. I am thrilled to be going on the road again, seeing new places, visiting friends along the way, and spending some time on the West Coast.