NORTH OF NEW YORK CITY: PART ONE

Last week Cara and I decided to get out of town for the day. Fall color is at its peak in the Hudson Valley while in the city it's yet to reach soul-toking maximum intensity, so one of the stops was the Mohonk Preserve, and because it’s October, and my favorite time of year, the other place was the Headless Horseman horror/scare/fright-fest thing. Both of which located near New Paltz, a little over an hour north of here. New Paltz is also the home of Rhino Records, and so we dropped in on their humble little used record store which reminded me of the place in Chico (whose name is now erased from my memory) I also dropped in on regularly, and dropped so much of my hard-earned cash on vinyl. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Now the thought of driving in NYC had me worried. I hate driving in cities. The constant vigilance against every conceivable form or variable would surely render me impotent, and at least end us in some kind of horrifying accident or more likely annoying mishap. And at the very least turn me into the unpleasant Mr. Hyde asshole person I call “Him.”

It was actually fine (big surprise, fear vs. reality trumped again!) and by the time we made it to New Jersey (my first time there) it was actually rather pleasant. Our highway soon turned two-lane country roads and my sphincter relaxed into a pleasant buzzing state.

First stop was actually Cara’s old home town Warwick, like Warwick Davis, the dwarf who played Willow and that creepy Leprechaun in Leprechaun 1, 2, 3, 4, and (not shit) six. The town is better: a quiet, rural yet mid-sized village (as they call them here) filled with historical (like very very old) structures, small streets and creek that ran right through town, I mean village.

For Cara it was odd as these things are. She spotted homes and buildings and named people and things that had been in these places. We visited the park she still thinks fondly of, got a cup of coffee in a cafe playing Depeche Mode and faith-based rock, and then drove out to her old home (see photo). We knocked on the door to have no one answer, and find the koi pond from her childhood in the backyard has been filled in and replaced with a garden. It was interesting to hear how she felt so confined in these rural surroundings while I found it all kind of exhilarating, imagining myself one day in a place like this as long as there was a college nearby to keep the Christian zealots and rednecks at bay.

After about an hour we drove off to New Paltz...