Dale's Exhibition and on to Potsdam

 Wednesday, August 21, 2024

The Museum doesn't open until eleven o'clock and the Inn offers a continental breakfast, so we're taking advantage of that! It's a relaxed morning and a contrast to the hustle bustle of NYC! The continental breakfast includes delicious pastries and hard-boiled eggs and bananas and a small citrus fruit that looks like a calamondin but isn't and coffee and tea.  And, more interestingly, it includes a stimulating conversation with the woman who runs the inn.  She isn't Heidi, because that was the original owner, and we've taken to calling her Not-Heidi!

Oh my goodness!  Ginger has found her favorite food in the whole world!
When other people want chocolate birthday cake, Ginger wants rhubarb pie!!

She suggests that we go have a look at the Mexican restaurant that is right up the hill and when we do Ginger strikes up a conversation in Spanish with the owner.  She is a remarkable artist and shows us photos of some of her work on her phone.  Ginger responds with her latest quilt, so the bonding is complete!  She even singers Ginger the Mexican Happy Birthday song that Jorge sings to Ginger every year on her birthday!

We go back to the room and load up the car and then go back to the office to turn in our key.  While there we get into a conversation with Not-Heidi about reincarnation!!  And on the way out Ginger picks an armload of rhubarb because Not-Heidi says that no one else will want it!  The plan is to make rhubarb pies for the family in Potsdam.

Daryl Hall, of Hall and Oates, has a club just down the street and they run a
shuttle between it and the Inn!

That's a lot of rhubarb!

Our next stop is the Hammond Museum to see Dale's exhibition.  It is in a small room with thirty large prints on display.  But then we realize that there are also lots of book of prints on the table to the left and we pore over them all.  Imagine my surprise when I discover one of my photos in one of the books!  I'm sure that Rieko had no idea it was mine, since it was on Dale's computer from when he printed it for me for the state fair.  I'm so incredibly flattered that she chose to include it!

Trees, trees, trees

Cute little museum and Japanese stroll garden, off the beaten path.

I'm really in love with his heron photo but it's too expensive for my blood.  Ginger offers to split it with me as my birthday present and that's when I finally lose my composure.  I have to visit the little shop in order to regain my composure.  We need to make arrangements to pick it up, since the show doesn't close until the 25th.  We were hoping to leave Potsdam on the 26th and the lady at the desk says that, although they are closed on the 26th, she thinks someone will be coming in and she will find out and let us know.  We weren't going to come back this way;  but plans change!  And maybe we can spent the night at Heidi's Inn again and this time eat in the Mexican restaurant.  If the food is as good as the grounds are beautiful, it should be spectacular!  And Heidi's Inn is a treat.  It's an old '60s motel with about fifty rooms and a pool and ping-pong table and luscious rolling lawns and flowers - and, of course, Ginger's rhubarb!

You might be able to spot it.  It won a prize at the state fair.

He even has some prints in the gift shop!

Now we're off to Potsdam.  It's about a five and a half hour trip but our tummies are full and we've got a slice of pizza and half a wrap to have for lunch when we get hungry.  The countryside to beautiful with trees everywhere and some of them are even beginning to show their fall colors.  Things go along peacefully enough and when it's time for gas we left the GPS show us a station.  Before we get there, though, there's an exit that says there is gas, so we take it.  There's a Shell station right away but it doesn't want to take our credit card.  Ginger finally goes inside and it told that they have no gas!!  There is another station down the road and we stop there for gas and a restroom break and to investigate the convenience store.  

Lots of Native American names!

Bridge over the...

                                                                       ...Erie Canal!

Beautiful country!

Small-town America

Such an interesting variety of goods are on offer!  There's the usual fare, of course, but there is also sushi and strange liquors and packs of crackers and deli meat and cheese!  I get a V-8 and Ginger gets M&Ms and we're on the road again.

The GPS still wants us to go to its gas station!  We can't convince it that we're no longer interested and finally just get off at the exit, drive through the station, and get back on the road!! 

It's been drizzling for a while and it keeps it up after we get off the interstate and begin traveling on a two-lane road..  Apparently this will be our route for the rest of the trip.  We even encounter a temporary traffic light, red, of course, that is safe-guarding a construction zone. There are long stretches with no civilization and the occasional very small town.  We know we've hit the bit time when a town has a McDonalds, a Burger King, an Arby's and two attorney's offices!

It's right next door to the Christian Science Reading Room.

We get to Kristina's house around six thirty, being the last to arrive, and are greeted with open arms.  I love being an honorary Haas!  There is a ton of food and beverages and we all go searching for the porcupine! We don't find him but Ben manages to dislodge some apples from what used to be part of an apple orchard and later we all share slices of the fruit.  The kids are playing a game and the ladies are talking politics.  Happily we're all of the same opinion regarding the presidential race!!

Isaac is refurbishing his first guitar!

Kristina's brothers still use this!  There's a four-car garage and this, um, vehicle is the one car in it!

The piano bar

"Caution, No bartender on duty. Drink at your own risk."

No, I don't think that's the porcupine!

There are still a lot of apples up there!

Cute little guy probably couldn't get out of this old "swimming pool"
that used to be a silo for the old dairy farm.

It's not very deep, but still...

And the youngest female in the group rescues him!

Kristina shows us the layout upstairs and Ginger and I have a large room with four twin beds and a double-bed mattress on the floor.  We can take out pick!

I imagine there will be lots of games! Ginger brought Herd Mentality and if you're a
reader of this blog you might remember it from the Oaxaca trip!

There are five kids in Kristina's family and I think everyone had their own bedroom in this uniquely
design old farm house - and it can sleep many more.  But there's one bathroom.

After a bit more time downstairs I'm played out and retire to choose my bed!  It's only ten thirty but I woke up at four this morning and I'm pretty much through for the day.  I even think I'll add the photos to this in the morning.