Saturday, May 14, 2005

#207 Saratoga and Apple Blossoms

It took about an hour and 55 minutes to get to Saratoga Springs.  I was very interested in Mark Lawson Antiques - they are the major sponsor of Antiques Roadshow on the local PBS channel, so I thought they would have a big store.   I was looking forward to exploring it. 

They were open from like 9 to 3, and had asked me to call with my arrival time.  I gave them an estimate of 2 pm, and got there at 1:50.  It's a smallish house.  I had to ring the bell, and a man unlocked the door and let me into the foyer.  They gave me my box of paperweights.  I left.  Duh.

They were on route 9, so I decided to just take route 9 home.  Somewhere in Saratoga there's a street (at least) of gorgeous old victorian houses.  I've always wanted to see them, but I have no idea where they are.  Route 9 took me right through the center of the business district, which is full of old hotels - four stories of gingerbread verandahs (looking very New Orleans), for rich Victorian-era folks who came to "take the waters".  Lots of boutiques, sidewalk cafes, hordes of people strolling.  No parking spaces anywhere. 

I did find the visitors' center, but couldn't find a parking space within six blocks in any direction, so I just kept going.  I'll come back sometime either outside tourist season, or the middle of the week.

When Jay was in the rehab center in Schenectady, he and I used to explore Schenectady on our practice trips out, looking for glorious houses.  Schenectady has some neighborhoods full of big old houses with wrap-around porches with fancy wicker furniture, towers, solariums, arched stained glass windows.  Jay and I both loved stuff like that.  If he had lived, we would eventually have sold this house (which had been built to his ex-wife's specifications) and bought a small old gingerbread house.  He required a garden with a gazebo, and stained glass in the windows - I required a huge wrapping porch and non-rectangular areas inside.  We both absolutely required a tall round tower.  I was going to fill the next-to-highest level with pillows, for lolling and reading.  He had plans for the top level  involving a retracting roof and a telescope.  (I once caught him looking speculatively at an old abandoned barn  with an attached silo near New Paltz.)

Long ago, when I lived in Highland, my mother was visiting, and I was taking her to Kingston.  Instead of going the direct route, I took her the back way, through New Paltz, Stone Ridge, Hurley, and uptown Kingston, so I could show her the colonial stone houses along the way.  I was very enthusiastic, described the interiors of those I had been in, what history I knew of the others - until she finally said, "Why are you showing me houses?  I have no interest in any of this.  They're just houses.  Old ones, at that."  I was crushed.  I would never do that to Daughter (at least, not on purpose.)  Daughter - you always try to show me things in your area that you think I'd like.  I'd like to see the things you like.   (But not so much the people - strangers make me nervous.)

Well, the village is having its Apple Blossom Festival today, so I'm going to wander off now.  The library will be having its $1 used book sale, and I'd like to stop by.

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