Fall Colors

My wife left me to my own devices when she flew east on 10/4 to do some leaf peeping in Vermont with her gal pals.  There’s not much to say about that week because my life essentially stops when she is gone.  We were reunited on 10/9.

The whole family was on the East Coast for the wedding of The Banker and Tina’s son. We had a blast.  It happened to take place in my hometown of Middletown, NY, close to where the grandparents of the groom live. I hooked up with my kids at EWR and we drove up to the Hampton Inn.  This was the Middletown, NY Hampton Inn as opposed to the Middletown, OH one that Barbie had originally booked for her family. That would have made for a very long ride to the wedding.  On our way up we stopped at the Chester Shop-Rite to pick up a couple sixers.  Happily, they carried IPAs for the spoiled Californians.  I texted The UK to let him know, as Chester is where he is from. I correctly guessed “nothing” when he asked me what I think he misses about Chester.

The next day I took the kids around to show them all the sites, including the hoops court featured on my 4/15/21 post. They saw St. Joseph’s elementary school, which I wore my green blazer and plaid clip-on tie to every day for five years. Sadly, they closed that one down about a decade ago. They also got a view of the old homestead and surrounding neighborhood. We took a good pic in front of the Elks Club sign a block down the road. 

As we were heading to show them my high school, we noticed the car in front of us had some flaming debris underneath. The women pulled over and got away from the vehicle. That is when SB1 and I sprang into action. He got a branch and pulled the detritus out while I stomped on it to extinguish it. It turned out to be a fully packaged lighted reindeer, so the carboard box caught fire.  Tis almost the season. After we were done and profusely thanked by the car’s occupant, we cranked up this tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koJlIGDImiU

Excitement over, it was time to turn in our rental car and connect with the wife. She was right on time, and we then piled into her rental and came here for lunch, the area’s premier red sauce joint. We used to get their pizza a lot when I was a kid, and it is still going strong, run by one of my old St. Joe’s classmates.

That evening brought us to a welcome party at the Stagecoach Inn in Goshen. The original structure dates from 1747. The drinks were flowing, and the chow was top notch. I went back for seconds. I got to meet some friends of the grandparents and chatted with some of younger folks as well.

The main event occurred the next day in the church on the campus of Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh. There was full mass presided over by a priest who is a friend of the family. The weather outside was a little overcast but the mood inside was joyous. We then hopped on the bus back to Middletown for the reception.

The reception was great. Cocktails and abundant appetizers prevailed for about an hour and a half. We then moved over to the dining room, where the couple and family were introduced. The Banker and Tina impressed me with their moves when it was their turn. The DJ was cranking it, so the groom’s grandfather went to have a little chat with him, which resulted in decreased volume. Thank you, sir!

I put on my dancing shoes and brought wifey out on to the floor. My moves are creaky, yet stylish. Dinner did not arrive for a few hours, which was fine as we had all loaded up on the appetizer selection.  When it did arrive, we all dug in and enjoyed. I don’t think anyone at my table availed themselves of the cauliflower steak. Maybe another time.

Our crew and #1’s connected on Monday morning for breakfast at the Goshen Diner before everyone went their separate ways.  The wife and I went to South Hadley, MA to see Charlie. She’s thriving in her new environment and took us around to see the local sites.  We also got to see her new granddaughter. The leaves were peaking, and we had fantastic weather for this leg of the trip.  We came across a few signs saying, “thickly settled”. We found this puzzling. I knew they were not referring to my gut, so I did some research.  It just means there are people around.  After leaving the quaint towns of Massachusetts, we visited the quaint town of Peterborough, NH. This was a last-minute call because we were not due in Westchester County NY until Thursday. We had a good dinner there with one of my wife’s SDSU pals and his wife, who live in a nearby town.

Our last stop was Sleepy Hollow, NY, the new home of my sister and LA. Guess what? It is a quaint town. We got the tour of their fab new home, which we hope they will be occupying very shortly.  We spent some time on the shore of the Hudson, with splendid views of Manhattan and the Mario Cuomo Bridge, formerly the Tappan Zee. We’d like to head back to MA, NH and NY in the spring. I’ll tell the wife to put in a few more hours at work so we can swing it.

Congrats to the newlyweds!!