Snorin' Away in Grandpa-ville (Fishkill, Upstate New York)

Lilly's mom passed last year and she inherited a condo in this over 55 community in Fishkill, New York. In reality, it is an over 85 community. It has taken some getting used to as I have never lived in a place with an HOA. The HOA document is sitting in a drawer and is ~75 pages long. While I am sure it is an exciting document, I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Ain't gonna be hanging out any laundry on the porch railings though.

It has a pool and clubhouse and is well maintained and orderly....kinda like living in a Marriott Extended Stay Hotel. Sure, I could join in the bingo nights, pool cook outs and cookie swaps but, alas, it ain't like a wanderin' and a ponderin' around the Atacama desert in northern Chile or the mountains of Nepal. 

But it will have to do for now.

It is also a little disconcerting to see, 20 or so years from now, my doppelganger self walking around. Many people here use walkers and have what looks like assistants.

Observationally, I think that the Regency is ~95% White with a few Asians thrown in. The assistants are usually from the Caribbean Islands or South America. At first they appear astonished when I  no, an old gringo, lays down a little Mexican slang in Spanish on them. But they seem to appreciate it. 

Every so often you see an ambulance outside of one of the units with no lights on and a few days later a for sale sign appears.

Alas, the circle of life right in front of me.

Lilly has seven brothers and sisters, most of whom live in upstate New York/or near the Hudson Valley, so we find things to do. When I was younger I always thought of New York State as one big New York City....boy was I wrong.

One weekend Lilly's brother organized a ~40 person kayak/canoe all age redneck regatta along the Susquehanna River, the source of the Chesapeake Bay. I had never been in a kayak before, so my first learning moment was how do you get into one of these fuckers while the kayak is in the flowing river and I am standing on a muddy bank?

The river's water level was quite shallow so it was not like we were lollygagging along with a leg over the side and a toe in the water. Sometimes you could hit patches of gravel in rapids and would really have to paddle like hell to get going again, as getting out and pulling your rig off the gravel bed was a royal pain. Not to mention getting back into the kayak while up river rapids were conspiring to turn it sideways.

The total trip was ~13 miles and about 8 hours of paddling. There was a screw missing in the middle of my L.L.Bean paddle, so with every paddle stroke, a drop or water dropped onto my knees. Eventually I was sitting/paddling in three inches of water.

In post action analysis, Lilly and I decided that we could have done with like 4 miles and 3 hours to get the idea. As such, I was sore for days in muscles that I didn't know I even had.

But all's well that ends well and here we took a break at the divey Green's Long River Inn in beautiful Unadilla, NY. We finished up at the Muddy River Farm Brewery in Oneonta.

One weekend we went to visit one of Lilly's sisters in East Greenbush, NY, a suburb of Albany. We went on adventure one fine day to Samascott Orchards. The place started in the early 1900's as a dairy operation and now is 1000 plus acres of fruits and vegetables. Among other services, it offers pick your own opportunities. Here were the red pepper fields. They were beautiful peppers, thick walled and seeming to weigh a pound each. But there they were rotting in the fields. Acres of them.

Samascott's offers over 70 varieties of apples and hundreds of varieties of other fruits, berries and vegetables.

Made a hell of an Apple Brown Betty that night with like a half dozen varieties of apples (had to make a pit stop for some Haagen Dazs French Vanilla to accompany).

Went to the wedding of the son of another of Lilly's sisters in the Thousand Islands Region Here is pre-game sunset on the Saint Lawrence River looking towards Canada in Clayton, NY 

And post-game after hearing several hours of toasts from a rather large wedding party of people I had never met.

Hike along Fishkill Stream where it joins the Hudson (kill means stream in Dutch). So far, upstate New York has been somewhat like being a traveler in a new land. Not the jungles of Ecuador mind you, but beautiful and interesting scenic tourism in the good ole USA.

So in the meantime, I have taken up making sourdough bread. Both boules and baguettes.

As well as Kimchi  and Giardiniera It takes a lot of You Tubing and asking a lot of questions to  a Chatbox AI to get these results.

We drove down to Northern Virginia to see my children and grandchildren during Thanksgiving. I think I was consigned/banished to the children's table until I was about 30.

At times, it was like herding cats to get them to/stay at the table. 

I tried to have a Bread Making 101 class for an activity but, alas, had to cancel due to the students lack of interest in yeast.  

Thanks for stopping by