While Ailsa recently interpreted yellow as an early sign of spring, we experienced this “warm” color in a wintry way. With air temps topping out at 28F, we bundled up and visited Orchard Beach in the Bronx (aka, The Riviera of New York) on foot. Woolen-socked, shearling-lined booted foot! We could’ve paddled today, but there was something nice about walking mitten-in-mitten along the beach…like a scene from every other online dating profile. Only frozen.
In these final hours of 2013, we celebrate the simple joys of paddling in new places…
…and meeting new friends along the way.
The simple pleasures of following seas…
…and lonely beaches
The simple joys of dry clothes, warm sun…
…and hot showers waiting for us back home.
Paddle on! Wishing you and yours a simply delightful 2014 🙂
— Jean & Alex
In mid-July, we made good on our promise to scurry back to Cooperstown, NY, just 3 and ½ hours from NYC. It’s a fantastic long weekend destination, especially if you’re a kayaker, opera fan, nature lover, history buff, or all of the above. (See our rave from last summer here—it contains lots of links so you can plan your own trip.)
On our must-do list this time: 1) Attend the Glimmerglass Festival productions of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Camelot by Lerner and Loewe—still on through August 24, so hurry! 2) Circumnavigate serenely picturesque Lake Otsego, aka “Glimmerglass” 3) Check out the local museums and the local brew 4) Bring bug spray.
We succeeded at all of the above, despite Jean’s screwing up our camping reservations and a CHECK ENGINE light we’ve been ignoring for awhile. We even made some exciting new discoveries…
Hold onto yer hats—and yer books, picnics, and kids! Wind howls across Lake Otsego
…like, “Glimmerglass” doesn’t always live up to the name! A steady 25-knot wind on Day One made paddling a real chore (we’re here to relax, right?) so we beached it and flopped down with the Times…until it blew away.
Even the gulls resorted to walking. (Better mooching on webbed foot anyway.) Glimmerglass State Park beach
Check out the flag! It was one of those days you wish your kayak had a motor.
SIGH. So much for our big “circumnav!” After a couple hours of kayak-surfing and picking sand from our teeth, we got to thinking, “What else can we do today?” Great thing about Cooperstown, there are lots of choices.
The 19th-century working farmstead at The Farmers’ Museum
Next Eureka Moment: The Farmers’ Museum is way more than a petting zoo where you feed the baby animals. Here, you can literally step back in time to an 1840s village and stroll through the creamery, apothecary, printing office, hops house, general store, etc. “Experience rural life nearly 200 years ago,” as the brochure says. And you get to feed the baby animals.
We learned goats have only one row of teeth (the bottom), live up to 15 years, can be housetrained (!) and make great pets. The fact that they’ll eat plants other animals avoid (poison ivy, for example) earned them the reputation as tin-can munchers. They do not eat tin cans, or old tires, or your shirttails, either.
Doh!
The noble heritage chick
A horse of exactly the same color as the fence
But these weren’t the only animals around…
Steeds of the Empire State Carousel, aka, “the museum you can ride!”
The Empire State Carousel opened at The Farmers’ Museum in 2006 and represents voluntary artistic contributions by over 1,000 New Yorkers.
I HEART NY! 25 hand-carved animals represent agricultural and natural resources of New York State
Hand-carved frames around the mirrors depict 11 different regions of NY. Other murals depict moments in NY history, from the arrival of Henry Hudson’s ship, Half Moon, to the construction of Levittown. (We didn’t say GREAT moments.)
Okay, okay. You can ride…but afterwards, scroll down because there’s one more thing to see.
Meet blacksmith Bob Manker and his 1740s-style Scottish pistol. That he made. (With Paul Spaulding, Robert Cerny and Travis Edgington).
In fact, they not only made the Scottish pistol—they forged the tools to make the pistol! Right here in the blacksmiths shop, using methods accurate to the 18th century. Yep, it works.
Now on display at the Fenimore Art Museum through December 29, 2013.
Forging Perfection: Masterworks From The Farmers’ Museum Blacksmith Shop
You can read more about the project here and here. (And see other bloggers’ posts about masterpieces here.)
Eliot beats the heat at Huckleberry Island
Last Saturday, with temps in the 90s and heat index circa 124, we were feeling mighty nostalgic for spring, winter and fall! Time to head for our favorite swimming hole (a soft-focus sepia experience for sure)…on the aptly named Huckleberry Island, 1.8 NM and 190 degrees SSW of Horseshoe Harbor as the crow (cormorant, oystercatcher, osprey, gull) flies.
In the 19th century, locals believed Huckleberry Island was the location of pirate Captain Kidd’s buried treasure
We paddled there with Marcy and Eliot, “huckleberry friends” from NYC.
[huckleberry friend —n, def: A very special, good friend that’s been in your life for years. From the Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini song, Moon River, featured in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.]
It would ’a’ been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.
—Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Two drifters off to see the world.
There’s such a lot of world to see.
We’re after the same rainbow’s end–
waiting ’round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.
Paddling near rocky Middle Ground to avoid motorboats
Huckleberry Island is uninhabited, except for about a gazillion double-crested cormorants. It is, in fact, the largest colonial waterbird rookery in western Long Island Sound. (DON’T visit during nesting season!) Read more here.
A native of Huckleberry Island greets us
We pulled our boats onto the small beach at the south side of the island.
Alex on Huckleberry Island, July 6
Like the island itself, this hut is owned by the Huckleberry Indians—a men’s club within the New York Athletic Club. The group formed in the late 19th century (read more here) and see pics here. From the looks of things, a few charter members are still around…
The only structure on Huckleberry Island, as far as we know…
Sandy casualty?
We love the rocks on Huckleberry Island, scoured and striated by glaciers long ago.
We (2geeks) moved to New Rochelle in 2011, after 20+ years of living in Manhattan. Sometimes we’re nostalgic about it. But only sometimes…just a little.
Looking SW toward Manhattan skyline…
…the Empire State Building harkens to the past
We’re always amazed to see the sky on fire. But oh, when it’s the water… A study in color(s) from 40.917N, 73.747W
An exclamation of surprise broke from the lips of Deerslayer …when on reaching the lake, he beheld the view that unexpectedly met his gaze. On a level with the point lay a broad sheet of water, so placid and limpid that it resembled a bed of the pure mountain atmosphere, compressed into a setting of hills and woods.
– From “The Deerslayer” by James Fenimore Cooper
Forward, stroke. We’re counting the days till our return to Glimmerglass—the lake AND the summer opera festival—in Cooperstown, NY. Called “Glimmerglass” in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, pristine Otsego Lake is the source for the Susqhehanna River and one of the finest deep-water fisheries (and kayakeries!) in Central New York. It also provides a magical setting for The Glimmerglass Festival, “a major destination for opera lovers from around the world” and certain opera-and-paddling fanatics from Westchester. Tickets are on sale now. Go get some.
Nine-mile-long Otsego Lake is bounded by The Glimmerglass Festival campus and Glimmerglass State Park on the northern end and the village of Cooperstown (over yonder, behind Alex) on the southern end
Interior of Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theater. Photo: Peyton Lea. Photo at left: Claire McAdams.
This summer, we’re especially looking forward to Wagner’s fourth opera, The Flying Dutchman, the story of a ghostly vessel doomed to traverse the seas for eternity. (Wait, where’s the “doom” part…?) Story aside, for us it’s all “about” tenor Jay Hunter Morris, a true hero of the Metropolitan Opera in more ways than one, who’ll sing the role of Erik.
OK, this post is supposed to be all about looking forward, but if you watch the Jay Hunter Morris link above, you may experience some déjà vu. Specifically, a “Jim Nabors talking vs. Jim Nabors singing” thing.
Ah, incongruity. Love that. Perhaps that’s why we like Cooperstown so much: It’s a place of such wonderful contrasts.
Ready to do a little trip planning? Consider the wonderfully disparate options:
You could stay at the grande dame of historic lakeside hotels, the 1909 Otesaga Resort Hotel.
Or, you could stay here:
The perfectly lovely Glimmerglass State Park also overlooks the lake. All campsites have a picnic table, grill, and fire ring (how Wagnerian!) Warm showers are available and appreciated.
You could dine at excellent area restaurants, including one of the top 10 restaurants in NY State, Alex and Ika.
Or… just plain Alex.
Tonight’s special: quinoa over bunsen burner. THIS summer, we plan to make an ACTUAL CAMPFIRE. Ooooo!
You could paddle an orange 54-lb. kayak…
Forward stroke courtesy of maestro Ben Lawry. Check out his Kayak Camps.
…or, you can paddle a 550-lb. one! (Check out the launch at 4:00 in… hilarious!)
You could go to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. But everybody does that. This summer, we’re adding these to our must-see list:
The Cooperstown Beverage Trail How’d we miss this one?! Once the hops-growing capital of North America, Cooperstown now boasts two breweries, a farm winery and an historic cider mill, each making world-class beverages. These establishmentscomprise New York State’s very first official cuisine trail: Fly Creek Cider Mill, Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown Brewing Company, Bear Pond Winery, Butternuts Beer & Ale, and Rustic Ridge Winery.
The Fenimore Art Museum Houses some of the nation’s finest examples of American landscape, history and genre paintings, American folk art, photography and American Indian art.
The Farmers’ Museum Experience 19th-century rural and village life firsthand through demonstrations and interpretive exhibits at one of the oldest rural life museums in the country.
Some outtakes from our visit last summer. Full-screen slideshow begins by clicking.
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2 Geeks @ 3 Knots 