CHAPTER NINETY SEVEN: CHANGE OF PLANS

CHAPTER NINETY SEVEN: CHANGE OF PLANS

Upstate New York is the bomb! We got two round fenders, big as beach balls, today from Defender via UPS and we went in search of a pump that would blow them up. We found a tire place and I asked the guy working there if he could help us. He immediately stopped what he was doing and walked over to their air pump. The Admiral showed him the valve, and he started pumping up the first fender. Done in ten seconds. On to the next fender – another ten seconds, and we had our fenders for the Troy Lock and the Erie Canal Locks. I asked the helpful Upstater if I could donate to his favorite local charity, and he just smiled and quietly told me “No.” He would not take any money. See how really nice people act? I’m talking to you, Mr. loud Northern New Jersey Shore dock hand. This guy probably does not have an f word in his vocabulary. It was a great way to start the day. The Admiral carried the fenders back to Slow Motion, as I headed off for a day of sightseeing.

It was around 10:45 am when I left the Rondout Yacht Basin in my retro Mazda 3 rental (no cruise control, no automatic locks, no remote control buttons, no 21^st century accessories). I programmed the GPS for the Culinary Institute of America across the Hudson in Hyde Park. GPS listed my arrival time at 11:35 a.m. Lunch time, I thought, as I salivated just a little. The guidebooks said you have to have a reservation, but I thought this is Tuesday, not a big tourist day, nobody breaks for lunch before noon anyway, and maybe I can sneak in at 11:45 before the crowd. Luck was with me on this sunny, but muggy, day. I arrived around 11:40 a.m. and headed for the restaurant building. The campus of the Culinary Institute is esthetically pleasing – lots of brick and stone buildings spread out under trees with plenty of green grass to sit or lie on and dream of your next kitchen concoction. I entered a nearly empty parking garage – good sign – and sped up the steps to the welcome desk. I asked if I needed a reservation for lunch, and the welcoming docent told me that I had my choice of eating at the Apple Pie Bakery Café, just around the corner, or going to the Italian restaurant for all kinds of pasta dishes. All I needed to hear was “apple pie” and I slid around that corner really fast. There were about 6 people in line before me. Big deal. It moved fast, and I had ordered and found a place at a table with four chairs (I like to stretch out and there were plenty of empty tables) before noon.

You can bet I ordered a slice of apple pie. In fact, I toyed with the idea of making apple pie – one or two (or three) slices – my whole lunch. But the nutrition fairy who sits on my shoulder when I am making such decisions recommended the mixed green salad. I was willing to do that, but I still needed to test the mettle of the chefs-in-being, so I also ordered one of the soups of the day – tomatillo soup with goat cheese topping. The mixed green salad has a highfalutin description (“local mesclun lettuce and arugula, dressed with shallot vinaigrette, English cucumbers, toasted sunflower seeds, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano”). So there was a modicum of creativity and skill involved in the making of it. The tomatillo soup was the standout, however. I have never eaten it before, but I sure would like to find another restaurant that can make it. The salad’s dressing was really sweet – is that what shallots do to it? There was a lot of lettuce and arugula, not enough heirlooms and cukes. The shaved cheese was a great topper. Lose the sunflower seeds. Now to the apple pie – when it was delivered (along with the salad, a major faux pas), I asked the waitperson if it had been warmed and she assured me it had. There is one hard and fast rule about apple pie that must be followed without exception – it must be warm, so that the rich flavor comes out in every bite. I hope every chef at the CIA learns this before graduating. But today, none of the apprentices was up to the task. The apple pie was room temperature. Don’t get me wrong – the apples were delicious, the crumbs on top were great – but it could have been so much more. And the worst thing any waitperson can do is raise false hopes that are dashed with the first bite. Olivia, you made the right choice selecting Berkeley over the CIA. You are far too honorable to misrepresent the temperature of a slice of apple pie. I left the Apple Pie Bakery Café about 12:30, and by then there was a very long line that ran completely down the hall and around the corner. So if you’re planning a trip to the CIA, make sure you arrive before noon, or expect to have enough time in the waiting line to memorize the entire menu before you are allowed inside to place your order.

I was on a tight schedule today, as the Admiral and I had decided at 9:30 this morning to change our plans for the next two weeks. We were going to stay at Rondout Yacht Basin through Labor Day, then head up to the Erie Canal on Tuesday, September 3. In fact, I have already paid for a nine day stay here in Kingston. However, we read in the September issue of Boating on the Hudson and Beyond that there will be a huge tugboat convention at Waterford, New York from September 6 through 8. Waterford, New York is where you tie up the night before entering the first series of locks on the Erie Canal (the Waterford Flight). This led the Admiral to question whether we would find a place to tie up in Waterford next week. So, as the navigator, I was tasked to call the Waterford Welcome Center to find out if they would have room for Slow Motion next Wednesday, September 4, or soon thereafter. Good thing the Admiral is so cautious. The WWC dock person told me that the tie up wall that is usually available to transients would be “closed” from September 4 through September 9, so that all the tugboats can be accommodated. And we thought that Labor Day would be the problem – oh no, it’s those cute little tugboats that we have photographed at least a thousand times along every waterway on the East Coast. They’re not so cute any more.

Okay – change of plans. That’s something we do at least once a week, based on changes in the weather. We’re kind of used to tossing out a week’s worth of planning and starting from scratch again. So we developed two options – one which was “iffy”, which would have us cruise from a place below Waterford through the first 5 locks and on to Schenectady in one day, then stay in Schenectady until the tugboats became unglued from the Waterford Wall. The other option was to leave tomorrow for Waterford and get there tomorrow or Thursday, then go through the Erie Canal Locks on Friday and arrive in Schenectady Friday afternoon, then return to Rondout Yacht Basin on Labor Day, with a stop at a cool looking marina in New Baltimore on the way south. This option required that the Schenectady Yacht Club have room for us on Friday. It actually required that the Schenectady marina have docks – the aerial photo showed no docks, but blurbs in the ActiveCaptain blog extolled the quality of the new floating docks. I made a call the Schenectady this morning, and we got “yeses” to both questions: Yes, we have floating docks, and Yes, you can stay here Friday. I then called Waterford about whether they would have room this Thursday, before they closed up for the tugs, and the dock person said that it is “really slow” this week, and she expects it to be slow the entire week – until the rush of boats for the Labor Day Weekend. Waterford has a “first come, first serve” policy, so there are no guarantees we can tie up there this week, but we have a good chance of getting space for Slow Motion. Finally, I called the New Baltimore marina, and they were most accommodating, having space for us both tomorrow, if necessary, and September 1 too. This second option was looking good.

And for that reason, my sightseeing time was looking really short. I had rented the car for the week, but now with our new plan, I had to see whatever I wanted to see between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., then return the car and get back to Slow Motion. Oh, and I also had to find time to get some essential groceries – bread, fruit, vegetables. Piece of cake, right? My itinerary had included the CIA in Hyde Park and FDR’s residence and library in Hyde Park, both on the east side of the Hudson River, and after that, a return to the west side of the Hudson River to go back in time (1969 to be exact) to visit Woodstock and my hippie roots. I am here to tell you that this can be done in 6 hours. I did it. It meant spending just an hour or so at the FDR Library and Museum and not visiting his house. This place required more time, and I hope to return when we get back to Rondout Yacht Basin on Labor Day. It also meant dropping by Woodstock for a half hour of immersion in modern day hippie culture, which is exactly like the hippie culture I was part of in the 60’s, except more popular with “straight” people and much more expensive. But you’ll have to wait until the next blog to read about these two incredible places, because the Admiral is importuning me to retire. It’s 9 p.m. and we’re leaving tomorrow at 6:30 a.m. Change of plans.