Life is a hospital where each patient is driven by the desire to change beds.
-Charles Baudelaire
Saturday arrived with but one fairly pleasant chore on the agenda, and a broad, beautiful day open after that. It was time for me to deliver the Columbia to Doug over in Binghamton for an oil change and an analysis of why she's running so hot on climb-out, which entailed a fourteen minute flight over the hills from KELM over to KBGM. The airfield sits on top of a plateau, with approach lights on tall towers stretching into the valley below. It makes for a steep approach just because of the optical illusion caused by the cliff, or maybe the realization that a drug-in final could lead to smacking the hillside.
Anyway I got there, a few minutes ahead of Doug actually, so I sat on a bench in the broiling heat reading the NYT until he arrived. Peg pulled up a few minutes later, and after a few more minutes of explaining my concerns to the mechanic we were ready to head off on an adventure.
But first P had to try to capture a photo of the magnificent vistas from the mountaintop airport. I caught a shot of her in Wyeth-esque loveliness, seated there in the grass.
Peg's World, I think I'll call it.
Leaving the airport, we set off on an adventure for the first time in I don't know how long. I used to love these little weekend trips to explore the upstate and neighboring Pennsylvania, but this summer has been an utter bust because of my relentless work schedule. This Saturday, however, we'd carve out a few hours free of writing projects and conference calls just to drive around the hills and enjoy a little time together.
Of course, neither of us is much for meandering. We always need a goal for our journey, and on this day it would be the Com-pac sailboat dealership in Skaneateles, with perhaps a glass of wine beside the lake as part of the agenda.
Although we'd been to Skaneateles before, the eastern shore of the lake was unfamiliar to us, so that's the path we chose.
To my mind, Skaneateles is the best of the Finger Lakes, with cobalt blue water and miles of undisturbed shoreline crowned at the northernmost shore with the town of Skaneateles, a leafy, beautiful community filled with chic restaurants and shops surrounded by neighborhoods of stately Victorian homes.
We kept rounding bends in the road and encountering images like this as we made our way north, finally descending into a stretch of pricey lakefront homes before entering the town, which was packed with day-trippers.
Still stuffed with the scrapple and eggs Peg fixed for breakfast, we decided it was too early for lunch but not for a glass of wine. We'd always been curious about the Sherwood Inn, a cool old hotel right across the street from the northernmost tip of the lake.
Venturing through the door to the tavern, we encountered a plaque commemorating the comments of Secretary of State William Seward on a visit there long ago.
It is about the most beautiful spot on the continent, or maybe just the one that suits us best. And the fact that the place is every bit as lovely as it was when Seward spoke those words 150 years ago reflects the value system of this place, and their desire to preserve the spaces that make life pleasurable.
One of those spaces is the Sherwood Inn's wood-paneled bar, appropriately dark but with bright views out across the lake. We settled in with a glass of cab and visited with our bartender, Abigail (?), a deeply tanned sixty-something who splits her time between summers here and winters at her beachfront condo on Lido Key, near where Jim went to college in Sarasota. How does a bartender afford a seven-figure winter place in Florida? Apparently Dad was a surgeon who, as she told it, was never home as she and her five siblings were growing up. She mentioned that after he died, her mother commented that she didn't really miss him because he'd never been around when he was alive, and when he finally did retire his presence around the house was an annoyance. A sad lesson in there somewhere.
Rather than ordering a second round, we responsibly ventured to the boat dealer filled with hope that maybe a trailerable Com-pac would be the answer to our sailing Jones. Around here boats are hauled for the season by the end of October, shrink-wrapped and left on the hard until May. When they're in the water, marinas charge a fortune because slips are at a premium on the Finger Lakes. For two cheap near-retirees, having a boat we could launch during the season, and store somewhere far from the lake and therefore less expensive, might provide a cost-effective alternative.
As we arrived at the dealer, we realized it was not to be. The web page showed several Com-pacs for sale, but alas only one, a spindly little twenty-footer, was on the yard.
A nice enough boat to be sure, but where would Peg entertain guests? How does one sleep in a berth with only a few inches above one's nose?
And they wanted $45,000.00 for this thing. YGBSM. When I asked about buying a larger, new model of the same brand, we were told the wait for new boats is over two years. So much for that idea.
The remainder of the inventory was mostly junky old used boats scattered around the converted barn where the dealer maintained his offices. The inside reeked of cigarette smoke. The dealer was a nice enough guy, old and sloppy and very knowledgeable about boats. And he had a winter place in Boca Grande he wanted to tell us all about. Of course. Who doesn't have a winter place in Florida?
Discouraged, we crawled back into the MB and wandered west through Auburn, driving past William Seward and Harriett Tubman's old houses and remembering wistfully that pandemic March when we drove up here to tour both, then south through Ithaca toward Horseheads and then home.
We won't talk about the horrendous round of golf I played to cap off what should have been a great day. That game is entirely between one's ears--mastering the basics of swinging a golf club truly isn't all that difficult. What varies with each round is the internal conversation, and mine had turned quite sour and self-critical by then. I should've stayed at Tara and curled up on the couch with P.
Today's already a hot one, with another 90 degree afternoon forecast for later. The window air conditioning unit is roaring beside me like the Columbia climbing out at full throttle. I have to turn it off for each call during the day, feeling the room grow hotter and stickier with every second I'm trapped on the phone or Zoom.
It's too hot even to chase squirrels, according to our two experts.
I think they have the right idea, but if I descend the steps to sprawl naked on the sidewalk next to them, Peg will need to bring bail money when she gets off work. So I think I'll stay in here and bill instead.
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