By Darren Johnson
Campus News
We live in a little Upstate New York town called Greenwich; it’s not far from other, more well-known towns.
Normally by this time of year my family and I would have taken one, maybe two full-bodied vacations. You know, the kind of trip where you queue to get on a plane, argue with Expedia while sun burning, and buy tacky keychains that will pile up in your junk drawer for the next 75 years.
But, then, the pandemic happened, and, well, let’s say owning a print paper in the midst of one isn’t the best financial move, and I realized – hey, we have tacky keychains not far from here!
Besides, my daughter graduated college, we got her a car via the kind and honest folks at Battenkill Motors, and she promptly decided to do a whirlwind driving trip all over the country with it – Battenkill owner Jon Cullinan told me at the soft opening of Wallie’s the other day that Kaylee got the car just before the big Used Car Shortage of 2021, so, phew!
Now it’s just my wife and me, and any trip we tried to plan got thwarted by rain storms, so we decided just to staycation. I mean, we do live in an area that attracts ice-cream eaters from Brooklyn (and paddle-boarders from the Bronx who don’t know how to swim). If it’s good enough for them…
Of course, seeing the Amish, who have a bakery stand on North Road in Greenwich (open mornings to about 7 p.m. daily except Sundays) always feels like a step back in time. The kids are so cute, as well. The prices are good. Seven bucks for a pie, three bucks for some donuts, four bucks for bread. The quality is good, too.
And Sunday? Why not head to the King Bakery Donut Cart on Main Street in Cambridge? Holy cow – I can’t believe the Greenwich Dunkins gets lines that back up onto the highway; King’s is so much better. Do yourself the favor, Greenwichians, and drive the extra 15 minutes to Cambridge. It’s open 8 a.m. to noon.
I’m a sucker for Lake George. It’s only about 20 minutes away. The dog can swim at a beach there. And the arcades. We really need to bring one of those arcades to Southern Washington County. Here’s where you can buy I ❤ to Fart T-shirts, and those tacky keychains. I recently found one with my name on it – a rare find. I ate at the last Howard Johnson’s restaurant in America. It looked dark mustard, the same as it did when my parents took me there a century ago, but was a bit overpriced and the food not very good. Ah, the cost of nostalgia … is the same price as an I ❤ to Fart T-shirt, which makes sense to get after going to the HoJo’s.
The fireworks sponsored by Fort Miller Group at the Fairgrounds on July 4 were really spectacular. About a half-an-hour long, the show was as good as any you’d see on vacation.
And then, also 20 minutes away, there’s the madhouse that is Saratoga Springs, where New York City driving rules apply and where, in a line to get bagels at Uncommon Grounds, I get to hear advantaged kids a third my age debate about massage tipping etiquette in Dubai vs. Tokyo vs. some other exotic place I’ll never get to visit. My parents’ idea of a trip was Gaslight Village, for crying out loud. Cheap car trips are in my DNA.
(Apparently, as I had overhead, it’s insulting to tip for a massage in some countries vs. others. To these young visitors, with my bag of half-off, day-old bagels and a Mexican Coca-Cola, I was Larry the Cable Guy, except without the celebrity and charm – which begs the question presented on Page 7 of this paper – how did the Greenwich pee wee football team get Larry the Cable Guy to do a comedy show here 20 years ago? I’ll go ask about that on Facebook.)
Contact Darren Johnson at editor@journalandpress.com.
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