Weekend in High Falls
Dori and I spent this past weekend up around High Falls, NY, which is a stone’s throw west of New Paltz. We stayed in the Captain’s Quarters of Captain Schoonmaker’s BNB. It was such a joy to get away from the city for a weekend, and just spend some time relaxing.
We drove up on a very grey saturday morning, through quite a bit of fog the whole way up. The whole ride was sleepy and dreary because of the low visibility. We arrived at CS’s, dropped off our stuff, and headed up to the Mohonk Mountain House to do some hiking. We drove up to the mountain, but got turned away at the gate (the trails were closed for the winter, and apparently you need a reservation to go ice skating - who ever heard of that…). We took an alternate route down the mountain and headed vaguely back towards New Paltz, intent on wandering around and possibly visiting a winery. Luck was on our side when we stumbled upon Rivendell Winery.
Rivendell was an unusual winery because of the sheer size and variety of their tasting menu. It was more like going to a wine bar than a winery, since they offered a 5-page menu, with drinks ranging from wine, sangria, port, to grappa, and a local lemoncello! Doubly surprising - they sold wines from all over NY State, rather than just from their own winery (though they had about 15 wines on the menu). It would have been even more unusual if there were elves and dwarves running around (yes, it was intentially named for the spot in the LOTR).
After the winery we made another fortunate discovery in New Paltz proper. Dori flipped through some of the touring-the-area brochures from the winery, and pointed us towards The Cheese Plate, a lovely little place on the edge of town. The staff there was very friendly, and were happy to let us sample a wide array of their cheeses (I think we tried about 10 different kinds before ordering anything). We ultimately settled on the “international plate”, but I have no recollection of its constituents. They were delicious, that I do recall.
We went back to CS’s after having our cheese snack, and later went to dinner at the Northern Spy. It was also excellent, and we both enjoyed our meals (and I my Ithaca Brewing Company beer). We retired to the room after dinner, where we sat near our in-room fireplace (!!!), relaxed, and read. It was an extremely relaxing evening.
Sunday we made the trek over to BelleAyre for some skiing and snowboarding, through the back rounds that passed by the resevoir. Having some clear skies made the drive about a thousand times more enjoyable, since we could actually see the water past the trees about a hundred yards off to the right and could get a flavor for the houses and communities along the way. We both had a difficult time getting back into the groove of skiing / snowboarding, but by our third run we were getting comfortable again - though very cold, so we called it early while we were still having fun, and headed back.
There’s not much else to report for the rest of the trip - we spent another relaxing evening by our borrowed fireplace reading and relaxing. On the way home we stopped at the cheese plate again and picked up another plate for my parents, since I saw them when I dropped off the car today.
It was such a relaxing weekend… I really want to go back right about now. :-/