Sunday, Aug. 25 – I had another not-quite-two-hour drive in front of me.

I will say that this drive, and the next one on Monday, was lovely. That part of the country is so beautiful, and particularly when you get to the Catskills, you find that Google Maps is routing you across covered bridges and on delightful mountain roads. It was a very pleasant drive – except for the part where I stopped to use the bathroom and then there was no cell service so Google Maps forgot where I was and where I was going. I sort of vaguely knew which way to go and eventually got a signal again.

Niece Samantha had told me to meet them at the Roscoe Beer Company at 11-ish. I didn’t have any problems finding it, and the whole younger generation was waiting for me when I walked out – Sam, husband Branden, kids Olivia and Jackson, and younger niece Allison. I made them line up for hugs. The plan was to get a starter drink for everyone (root beer for the kids) and grab a picnic table out in the beer garden. This was an excellent plan and we spent hours there, drinking (I only had the one beer, then switched to root beer), eating many appetizers, talking and playing lawn games.

The live music was fun – a guitarist/singer doing old AM-radio type of hits, like “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” (I know, that’s not the title, but I didn’t want you to think he was singing Christmas carols) and accompanied by a ‘drummer’, who was just a guy sitting on a wooden box tapping rhythm on the box. It worked!

We played Uno, which I hadn’t played since college. And right before we left, Jackson dragged me into playing a game of cornhole (oh, stop!), which I think was a delaying tactic. I never did figure out the scoring, and I just let him keep track, and I forget who won, but it was fun. We wrapped it up mid-afternoon. They all headed to ‘Grandma and Grandpa’s house’ (my brother- and sister-in-law, Rich and Dottie’s) and I went to my inn to check in. The inn is right on the main drag, and C and I had stayed at the motel-y part before, but I’d never stayed in the inn itself. I saw no people, but there were keys waiting in the mailbox in marked envelopes, and there was one for me. I was in a second-floor room at the front of the house, and it was really nice, actually. Got cleaned up, and put together the little gift boxes with the swatches for the kids.

Off to the Keisers, where Jackson met me at my car and tried to get me to play another round of some lawn game, but I said, ‘no, I haven’t seen your grandparents, I need to say hi’. Came in, many greetings. Handed over the wine to be put in the fridge, and handed out the gifts to the kids (they really liked them). Then it was just sitting around and chatting and stuff. Branden grilled steak, and there were a ton of sides. We had a great dinner. Rich gave me a large bottle of homemade hard cider that a neighbor of his had made (and I still have it, it’s in the fridge, if anyone wants to come over and get plastered), and Branden and I tried some of that.

Sam and Branden and the kids were flying back to Minnesota early the next morning (Allison lives ‘here’, meaning in New York State, a hefty but not unreasonable drive away from her parents’) so I got out of their hair around 8:00 and went back to the inn. Went to my room, got into comfy clothes, and then wanted to connect to the wifi. I knew I’d seen signs about the wifi password, but they weren’t in the room. In bare feet, shorts, a t-shirt and holding my phone, I headed to the hallway, and my door immediately shut and locked behind me. OH FUCK.

So, as I said, I hadn’t seen any other people in the inn, but I had seen a sign about calling some number if you needed to, and luckily I had my phone with me. (If I hadn’t, that would have been a BIGGER disaster.) So I called the number and left an SOS message on their answering service. I was thinking that maybe management was offsite and I may not get any response at all, but after about ten minutes of waiting in the breakfast room, a door at the back opened and it turned out that there was a manager onsite. I apologized profusely and she let me in my room. Crisis averted, but boy, that could have been really ugly. Lesson learned – always take your key with you!

(and then I had a pleasant chill-down with news and knitting and reading)

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The plan for Monday morning was to have breakfast with my friend Van, who I’ve known since the days of founding the Philadelphia Freedom Band back in the late 80’s, when he and his partner Bruce would come in from NYC to swell our ranks. Van now lives in Livingston Manor, one town over from Roscoe, and Bruce passed away the same year that Charles did. I’d stayed with him two years ago, and this was the first time we’d seen each other since then.

Amusingly enough, I couldn’t exactly remember where the Roscoe Diner was, and when I checked on my phone, I was like, ‘oh, it’s on the other side of the Sunoco next to the Inn, it’s literally two minutes walk away’. Headed over, Van was already there and we had a great time catching up, even though the conversation wasn’t always jolly (trading ‘heart incident’ stories, for instance). He’s a good friend and I’m blessed to have him in my life, and I wish we got to see each other more often.

I was ‘working’ that day, so needed to get back to the Inn in time for a 10:00 meeting – which I did, and then the meeting was cancelled! So… pack up the car, and off to Rhinebeck for the week.