A Weekend in Southern New York

A couple of weeks ago, Mike, myself, and our group of friends decided to see a baseball game. It wasn't a spur of the moment decision. It was one of those things where somebody mentions, "Hey, we should catch a game some time," and everybody agrees and nobody does anything about it. Then after a year has gone by, a member of the group says, "Remember how last year we all wanted to see a baseball game?" and the group nods ans somebody says, "Yeah, we should definitely still do that." Then finally somebody gets sick of the waiting and says, "Well, let's chose a date now and get tickets." And we chose a date and that's how we finally ended up deciding to actually go to a baseball game.

The trip started out with Mike and myself making another run down to IKEA to buy some more things for the library. After barely fitting everything into the Prius (but who are we kidding, you can fit anything into the Prius), we headed for Lauren and Steve's apartment in Peekskill to meet up with the group and head down to Queens. Lauren had the great idea of renting a large car instead of taking the train, and I'm sure we will all forever be grateful to her.

IKEA breakfast of champions

The game was at Citifield and it was the Mets versus the Reds. Pretty much as soon as we got there, it started to rain. A slight drizzle at first and that soon became a steady pour. We stuck it out, though. We brought ponchos and good spirits and our seats were semi-protected by an overhang. We were in the cheap seats where literally the best people sit. Diehard fans and drunk college kids and weird dudes who will sit right next to you even though there are hundreds of empty seats all around. Overall, a good experience.

Who's excited for baseball?

Around the 4th or 5th inning, we decided to walk around. Mike had seen a helmet filled with nachos earlier and the hunt was on the find them. While he sniffed them out, the rest of us stood in line for Shake Shack, because something as inconsequential as a downpour will not stop there from being a line at Shake Shack. It was worth it though, because that strawberry shake was awesome, and Mike did find his nachos, which were delicious. And right as we decided the rain was getting to much for us, the officials called a rain delay, thus began the mass exodus to the exits. We made it to our car, Sara and I braved a parking lot portapotty (not anywhere near as bad as the marathon portapotties), and headed back to Peekskill. Once again, thank you to Lauren for the idea to rent the car and to Chris and Sara for actually doing the renting. That would have been a wet and miserable 2+ hour train ride.

So many nachos!!!

For dinner we stopped at the Peekskill Brewery, which is becoming somewhat of a tradition for our group. We shared giants pretzels and a cheese and meat platter, which were just perfect as we had kind of all  filled up on helmet nachos. The night ended at the apartment, watching forgotten internet classic videos on YouTube.

The next day, as we were packing up to get out of our hosts' hair, Lauren had the great idea to visit a historic home. The Hudson Valley is filled with them, so we figured to give it a shot before heading back. The original plan was to visit Van Cortlandt Manor, but as were arrived, we discovered that the summer season had not yet started for them and they were closed. Thank goodness for smart phones! We did some quick searching and saw that we were close to Sunnyside, Washington Irving's home in Tarrytown. Some quick driving on Chris' part got us to the house in plenty of time for the next tour.

Surprise! There's a house growing out of those trees!

Irving's house is right on the Hudson and is a great example of Romantic architecture. He made great changes to the landscape and the house to make it seem as though the house had just emerged from the surrounding nature. A babbling brook passes the side of the home and hills hide the house from approaching visitors so that the first glimpse is somewhat dramatic. It's extremely peaceful...with the exception for the trains that pass through occasionally on the tracks that separate the property from the river. Tracks that went down while Irving was still alive and apparently irked him until his dying day. Ah well, we can't have it all, I suppose.

The Hudson, some train tracks, and fog

The tour was incredibly informative. I of course knew the story or Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, but I never knew how famous Irving was in his day. When he passed away, the church bells in NYC rang a full hour to mark his passing, and fact we all marveled over. Who, today, would receive that sort of treatment? We walked the grounds, learned about the modifications he had made to the land, and were brought on a pretty extensive tour of the home.

As big as the home was for the period it was lived in, the hallways were narrow and our tour of ten had to take turns walking into the rooms as our guide told us facts about the author and his family as well as his body of work. Also there's no air conditioning (makes sense) but we lucked out in that it was another drizzly day and a bit cool. I cannot imagine what that house must be like when it's 90 degrees.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside. This porch area was off of the parlor. The doors could be opened to expand the entertainment space.

My favorite room was one of the lady's rooms. One slanting wall had striped wallpaper, which apparently during the Napoleonic wars was quite the height of fashion in Europe as it resembled the soldiers' tents. Irving saw it while in Europe and had the room modeled in the same way. I just found that fascinating. Also, the bed on the other side of the room was tucked into its own little alcove and looked incredibly cozy.

The house contained quite a large kitchen, which even by today's standards looked pretty modern considering what most people had in their homes at the time. A huge multi-burner stove to cook on and even a water heater. Outside privies were still in use, though, and the men in our group all made sure to check them out. The pantry contained an icebox and a humane catch-and-release mouse trap. All the best conveniences of the time.

The Ice House!

We didn't get to explore the tower that Irving added on with the money he received from the railroad company and apparently there had been a ballroom added on at some point which was torn down when the house was restored for tours. Both were a bummer to miss out on, but the house and guided tour were still lovely. There are picnic tables set up outside and had the weather been nicer, it would have been a beautiful spot for lunch.

The tower added on for extra living space

We left, grabbed some lunch, and decided to make one last detour to the Captain Lawrence brewery in Elmsford. I went to school in Elmsford as a child so I'm familiar with the area, but as the GPS took us closer to the location, I was a little skeptical as to what we might find. The brewery is in the same business park as the Westchester Broadway Theater (one of my favorite places) and tucked away next to a Snapple shipping facility. There's a little beer garden setup outside and the inside has plenty of tables inside. The first thing that struck me was how loud it was inside! Flogging Molly was blaring from the speakers and it was difficult to hear each other speak. In the warehouse itself it was much quieter. The tour itself was a general overview of the history of the beer and what goes into it (a recent trip to the Shmaltz brewery was much more informative and enjoyable). I'm not a huge beer drinker but I did taste the beers they offered, and they mostly just tasted like beer to me. The rest of the group seemed to enjoy it though. This was our last stop before heading home.

Safety first at Captain Lawrence!

All in all it was a pretty great weekend. As you might be able to tell, I enjoyed the house tour more than the baseball game and brewery, but that certainly could be chalked up to the crappy weather at the game and not being a beer fanatic. If you're ever in the Hudson Valley, I highly recommend checking out Sunnyside, or even one of the other great house tours that are available. It literally feels like you're stepping into the past.