By Sunday morning, we were really glad to get out of the Catskills and back to civilization. Civilization obliged, in the form of William's former co-worker Eric, and we spent a pleasant night in Newton, MA (just west of Boston) with his charming family in their lovely big house. There was wine, yummy dinner, a garden to admire, and Eric's 5-year-old daughter Nina was thrilled to have new people to play with, even if it was just for the evening. On Monday, we felt ready to tackle our next challenge: New York City. Our original plan was to stay in Stamford, CT and take the train into NYC on Tuesday, but, in a session in East Durham at about 1 am on Sunday morning, Doug the piper said, “You should all come and visit me in Queens sometime” and we said, “How about Monday and Tuesday?!”. Being the very nice person he is, he agreed and we took up all the space in his living room for about 36 hours.
We got to Queens about 8 pm on Monday and set out for a session at Spike Hill in Brooklyn almost immediately. It was great, if a bit crowded, but everyone was very friendly and welcoming and they had amazing veggie burgers, along with Chimay and Original Sin. I think we left about 1 am and, after realizing that the next subway train would leave in 27 minutes, decided to take a cab back to Doug's. William moved the car due to street-cleaning regulations and we collapsed. Tuesday...was a heck of a day. William came back from going to retrieve the car with the heart-stopping news that the car was NO LONGER THERE. A quick phone call to the NYPD revealed that the car had been towed and that they would be happy to give it back to us if we gave them lots of money. We got a cab by standing on the corner looking frantic and the driver took us over to the car pound. It was raining, and since William is the registered owner of the car, I was not allowed to go anywhere after we got in the front gate. So I stood under the Kosciuszko bridge getting drizzled on and meditating on the futility of careful planning and time management. William said later that everyone was very gruff and hostile until he gave them money, and then they couldn't have been friendlier. So...we had the car back and we were somewhere called Maspeth...somehow we found our way back to Doug's place where we very carefully parked the car and got ourselves ready to go. William had a guitar lesson scheduled at 2:30 in uptown Manhattan with Kevin Gallagher and we had just enough time to get there – there was another few minutes of panic while we tried to find the digital recorder, but we got it, got ourselves on the right train and, eventually, the right train going in the right direction, and went to Manhattan. We got to the 145th street station (on the 'A' train, no less) at about 2 and found ourselves right across the street from Raw Soul. It was pricey but very good and the place itself had an extremely soothing atmosphere which was just what we needed. We got to Kevin's place on time and William said the lesson was excellent – given the amount of stress we had been through at this point, that was good news. Afterwards, we got some coffee and meandered down to midtown...we walked around, it rained and dripped and drizzled, and eventually we got to Candle 79 where we had plans to meet Anna, a friend of mine from college, and her friend Sue. There was a slight mix-up with the Candle Cafe location but we all got there and had the best vegan food I have ever had and probably some of the best I will have for a while until we learn to cook that well. We had a wonderful time and managed to leave the rest of our stress behind – we successfully navigated the subway back to Queens and got ready to leave in the morning.
Wednesday, we drove back to Massachusetts. This time we went to Mattapoisett to see Mark Roberts and Andrea Cooper, along with their son Fenton, who we know from Friday Harbor Irish Music Camp. They just moved to MA in May, so they're barely settled in but we had a splendid time with them....they made dinner and we took it down to the beach for a picnic with swimming and beer and sand and all sorts of relaxing things like that. After the saga of New York City, this was a calming sort of experience and stopping for ice cream on the way home didn't bother us in the slightest. We played a few tunes but got to bed on the early side that night. Thursday, on a whim, we drove north to New Hampshire and west to Vermont and spent the night in Brattleboro. This town has an infinite number of bookstores and coffeeshops, an excellent food co-op, and a pub with local beers – I think we both briefly considered just staying there indefinitely but, again, we'd really need to get through a New England winter before making up our minds and I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't make it past January.
Friday and Saturday were spent in Cinnaminson, NJ, with the ever-hospitable Kaplan family. Alan and Carol took us for a walk by the Delaware River on Friday night, followed by ice cream (what else?) and on Saturday we spent most of the day in Philadelphia which is just across the river. We walked around the historic part of the city but decided to skip the crowds and not go into the buildings, and then we wandered around the Philadelphia Museum of Art for 2-3 hours soaking up culture. We have missed going to museums and that's something we're planning on doing when we're in Pittsburgh and Tulsa, so it was nice to get in an unexpected afternoon of art. I took a ridiculous number of photos that day and I'll put the better ones up soon – one of the exhibits at the museum was photographs and drawings of skyscrapers and it was truly inspiring to look at what a master photographer can do with light, shadow, and a building.
And then it was Sunday,. Another long day of driving – we went through parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina – brought us to the Outer Banks and the annual Bajzek family vacation week at the beach. Which will be the subject of the next post...
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