I know, darlings, I’ve been terrible! You know, something about the magic of our vacation felt lasting, like I’ve been carrying this tiny piece of the Catskills around with me. Which would technically be a rock. But a really relaxing and restorative rock!
Some things I didn’t photograph:
Driving through the back roads along the edge of Catskill Park, Stuart behind the wheel, listening to Gomez and taking little side streets to see if they took us up the mountains. They didn’t.
Standing frozen on the dusky street near the house, watching a widdle bunny wabbit giving me the hairy eyeball as I tiptoed for a closer look.
The crowded horror of the Saugerties Garlic Festival, with three hundred stands and two hundred of them selling garlic. GARLIC! So much garlic and nothing to do.
Singing along in the dark to songs coming from the window speakers and shining the flashlight regularly into the woods checking for bears.
Trying to figure out exactly how many chipmunks were living in the high-rise chipmunk apartment building that was our retaining wall in the garden. Five? A million? No one knows.
Driving thirty minutes into the mountains following signs to “Brauhaus German Beer Hall!” only to get there and find a retired persons bus tour unloading for the, NO KIDDING, Annual SCHLOTTFEST! What’s a schlott? We didn’t know! We were afraid! We ran! back to the car, and sang “Love Train” as “Schlott Train” all the way back down the mountain.
Climbing, climbing, CLIMBING up the Plateau Mountain outlook trail on Friday afternoon only to give up after two hours as dusk was falling and heading back down the mountain, my shaky legs carrying me stumblingly behind the reassuring back of Stuart, because I knew he’d turn and catch me if I did stumble.
The feeling of being safe and cozy in the passenger seat as Stuart ably handled the roads, even when we didn’t know where we were going and just exploring in general compass directions, like, “let’s go west!” or “look, we’re off my map!” Being so proud of his driving.
Pawing through the mounds of dusty books at the Woodstock Library sale, chatting across the table to each other about what we were looking for and what we were finding. Walking about with two bags of paperbacks for seven bucks.
Delightedly chowing down on hamburgers we made ourselves, on the grill, with bacon! We were so proud, grill-less city slickers that we usually are.
Fighting the random invasion of wasps into the bedroom, well, Stuart fighting them as I stood shrieking in the bathroom. Deciding that the wasps were doling out pissed-off revenge from our evacuation of their cozy home in the garden umbrella.
Getting thwarted every time we tried to do a specific activity, like visit someplace called “Cider Press and Country Store” that had no cider, or going to Hunter Mountain and having the sky ride not working yet or going to the bowling lanes and it being league night, or heading to hike Kaaterskill Falls and finding it closed. And being reminded by all this thwarting that what we really needed to be doing was the dolce far niente, which is exactly what we went back to the cottage to do.
Waking up in the cozy quiet buzz of morning, nothing planned, nothing demanding, just us. Relaxing, talking, eating and driving and laughing and, oh, oh, it was marvelous.
It was the perfect vacation. I guess I did have a lot to tell you after all.

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