10/1/2011
One thing being on the road has reminded me of is that life is all about balance. From the amount of fiber in my diet to nice vs. not so nice campsites to the weather, even to the energy in the RV, is about balance. We had this amazing day yesterday; rainy, but good cheer and amazing sites. Then we get to our campsite, a sodden mudhole where it was all we could do to get hooked up and back in the RV before getting sucked into the goo. The thing is, the RV is very, very small, which can feel warm and snuggly, but when you’re going in and out in the wind and rain and mud, it’s not long before the inside starts to feel like the outside… and my good cheer started to turn, too. Today it’s STILL raining, with snow (what the hell???) in the forecast. We’ve planned for two days of tooling along the Hudson River, stopping and sight seeing and visiting little towns, but the weather doesn’t have us much in the mood for the constant in and out, so we’ll see.
I have to say, though, that right when I was feeling the most morose, we stopped to buy a bag of apples. The farmer was in tears when I added some extra money to the cost of the apples. What we forget in our feeling inconvenienced by the rain, is that people across America who count on their crops to carry them through are being absolutely wiped out right now. The farmer, free to share his politics (not something unusual, we’ve found) was telling us that the rain has ruined half of his crop already, thousands of dollars just rotting in the fields. The half that’s salvageable he can’t get picked because no one wants to work in the rain. Now, I’ve always considered myself a liberal, but I realize that I’m really not educated at all when it comes to what’s going on the heartland. Welfare, once instituted for fairly good reasons, hasn’t changed much since its inception, but the way the world works, has. The farmer was telling us that the same people who used to work for him are now on welfare and would rather stay inside “leeching off the government” than work. Now, of course I know that the issues are much more complex than that, but it does make you wonder. We have already passed miles and miles of apple orchards and corn fields laden with apples and corn, standing in inches of water…it’s really sad. (The apples are AMAZING. We’re now on our 2nd batch of applesauce and who can count how many snacks.)
10/2/2011
Ah, look, it’s still raining… hard! We went to a local (local, local) pizza place for dinner last night. We decided to stay in a RV site ‘cuz everything is too wet, so we checked in to motel/hotel. After having one of the first huge blowouts of the trip with Cork (yes, it’s all about balance) we got to our room and it STANK of cigarette smoke. This time, however, I called the front desk and asked for another room. They gave us a Pet Friendly room that STANK of dog, BIG DOG, but that was much easier to get used to. Anyway, after driving for 8 hours we just couldn’t get back into the RV, so we headed out on foot to find a place to eat. Our first choice was this place called the Union House. It’s been serving food in one way or another for 200 years. Now I have to tell you, I’m not always too keen on eating anywhere that’s been open for 20 years much less 200 (if you’ve ever owned or even worked in a restaurant, you know how hard it is to do deep cleaning unless you close for at least one day every week and have a crew come in) but we were told it was an interesting spot. As I’ve said, balance is important. Cork and Lily and I all get to take turns choosing where to eat, and we made Cork eat HORRIBLE Japanese food one night (Lily’s choice) so he got to choose last night. Anyway, luckily for me the Union House was closed for a private event, so we ended up at Vince’s Pizzeria with Vince in the kitchen. It was GREAT! Lily had a fantastic pizza, Cork had a tuna sub, and I had a Chicken Marsala which was a little boring, but clean and fresh, no cream or heavy garlic. The thing that was really amazing about my dish was the size. Oh. My. God. It easily could have fed 3 people. I couldn’t even make a dent in it, and I was hungry! Luckily we had room in the freezer in the RV so it will become another incarnation of a pasta dish some late night when it’s raining and we’re in an RV park and no one wants to cook….
ANYWAY, the waitress at this place told me that their town has flooded twice in the last two months.
So what was this blowout about? It went something like this: We’d been on the road for 8 hours and I had driven the last 4. It was a nice relaxing day, really, but lots and lots and lots of rain. Driving the RV in the rain is not difficult, but driving the RV in the rain in hilly terrain on a two-lane road, you have to pay attention and can’t really use cruise control, which I love to use. So I’d been intent on driving for 4 hours, we were trying to find the motel (yeah, did I say it was raining?) and I really had to pee. We were on a narrow two-lane road with cars behind me, and I couldn’t pull over. Cork is Cork. We’re looking for Johnstown and he keeps saying “I can’t find Johnsonville.” I say, “We’re not going to Johnsonville, we’re going to Johnstown.” And he says “Who cares, Johnsonville, Johnstown.” And I say, “You’re not going to be able to find Johnsonville ‘cuz there isn’t a Johnsonville” (mind you, I’m driving, it’s RAINING, I have to pee, there are cars behind me, we’ve been on the road for 8 hours) and he says “Who cares what it’s called. Why are you so concerned with what it’s called?” And this goes on for a few minutes before I bellow “You’re not going to find a GODXCFASDF town called Johnsonville because we’re NOT GOING TO JOHNSONVILLE. WE’RE GOING TO JOHNSTOWN.” And he says “Why is it so important to you to be right?” And I just about blew my top. Flipped my lid. Came UNCORKED. But I didn’t. I ground my teeth for a while, thought about why people might just drive their cars off of roads sometimes, and kept going… after turning around, because Johnstown was about 20 minutes in the other direction.
So the motel was noisy (wedding party in the room next door) but dry. We woke up to rain, visited the local weekend festival (in the rain) drove for a couple of hours and miracle of miracles arrived in Hudson, in the Hudson River Valley, and there was sunlight! We had a great lunch at a little French place (where, I must say, Lily was quite smitten with the owner’s son, a very handsome 16-year-old French kid) and then walked about 15 blocks of shops and cafes and lots and lots of art-based boutiques. Once in the car we drove for another 45 minutes of incredible landscape to a little town called Copake, and another beautiful campsite. Of course it’s raining off and on, but our little patch of land is mudless, our laundry is done, our dinner of leftovers is cleaned up and we just had a wonderful phone call from Maria, one of our favorite people on the planet. Life is good…
