Tom & I took off to the Catskills for a few days for a change in scenery. We stayed outside of Phoenicia at Kate’s Lazy Meadow Motel (owned by Kate Pierson of the B-52’s). They were pet friendly so we took Izzy the fur ball & chain with us too. The camera bit the dust finally shortly after we got there so most of our photos were taken with the video camera. The inside of the motel room was done in late 50’s through early 70’s decor. It had a kitchen and two bedrooms and when we got there we took the comforters off the beds and put them on the floor and dumped the bin of toys on it and set the babies free to play. They were in their car seats for three hours but were so good and barely complained. Tom and I marveled at the ridiculous lamp collection when chrome was all the rage and the Star Trek pillows on the mod red leather couch and a boomerang shaped coffee table. In the bedroom hung those creepy long paintings of kids with huge eyes and porcelain kittens and a framed photo of Karen Black sat on the dresser. After we got the babies to sleep we had our favorite dinner of cheese, bread and local brew (too tired to find a wine shop). It wasn’t that we were staying somewhere luxurious, it was that we didn’t have to look around our house and think of all the things we weren’t getting done. The air smelled of wood burning stoves. Unfortunately we didn’t bring the pack n’ plays so Jack & Marlowe woke up a lot and by the next morning we had gotten about 2 hours of sleep. The dog may have sprained something getting out of the car the night before so she was limping the next morning so we left her behind. When we returned from our hike she was running around so we were pretty sure she was faking it to get out of the hike. The last time we hiked with her in the Catskills we had to carry her over a mile to the car. She is the most unathletic dog, her breed is supposed to heard sheep…she can’t even walk to the local park without lying down.
We walked all around North-South Lake. Tom and I are both tall and have a similar gate so hiking together is easy. My father is nearly 7′ tall and I remember trying to keep up with him on our hikes in Europe when I was a kid, old ladies, who had been hiking since they were little, leaving us both in the dust. This day was beautiful out and the air was cool but the sun was warm. Jack and Marlowe looked all around at the leaves and the trees and talked to each other from their backpacks. I had used this backpack a lot with Ruby when she was little and it was cute to see Marlowe in it now. Jack fell asleep in his somehow when we were doing the most climbing on the trail.
At the end of the trail we sat in the grass and looked at the lake. Tom and I played soccer with the babies using them like live foose-ball players. We had Jack and Marlowe kick the ball back and forth to each other. We held them under their arms and swung their whole bodies to kick the ball. They laughed so hard and would shriek with excitement when it was their turn to kick the ball. Tom and I were laughing so hard we could barely run with them.
When we got back to the motel we walked over to where the motel rents out Airstream trailers. They park them by Esopus Creek which is really a river. There was 4 of them and two being refurbished. Each had a different theme, bubbles, tiki, tinkerbell…and Kate’s Hairstream.
yes, that says “Land Yacht”
Inside the Hairstream, its all B 52’s stuff.
Tiki was open and we shot some video in it for our family as a goof, showing a tour of our new piece of real estate we bought. The babies played in the leaves and the pine needles. By the creek there were smooth black stones and we found some lambs ear growing in them for them to touch. We would love to come back in the summer with some friends and the kids and rent a couple of the Airstreams, it would be a blast.
In the evening we went up to visit our friends Tony & Posey. They have recently built their house and were starting to be able to enjoy it and be proud of it after having gone through the huge stress of getting it built. They had a party a few days earlier and had a ceremony to try and cleanse the place of any negative vibes. These friends are not of the Catskill type you see that wear polar fleece and have a dream catcher in their Subaru, but are ex-Brooklynites and smart and creative people. So it made perfect sense and didn’t sound hokey that they needed to move forward with a fresh start. The house was a modular home and neither Tom nor I had any idea you could get such a nice one. The views were incredible and they made as many green choices as cost would allow. In time it will settle into the landscape and it will become a home as the positive memories accumulate. We will have to come up and sit under the stars around their fire pit before it gets too nippy.
Even with a few nights of sleep deprivation the whole trip was rejuvenating. No cell phone service and no computer was nice and they were not missed. A walk in the woods is always where my head goes to think of a safe and calm place. It was probably some of my favorite days with my husband since we got married last July, although we had the babies with us and it was mid-week, it felt like a romantic weekend away. I need more of these.
