The Great Lighthouse Hunt Part II

Getting what you paid for is usually a good thing. So when I realized that I had a couple of thousand miles left to use on my leased car in a few short days, I had to do something. 

A sister called. She and her kids were going to Plymouth, Massachusetts for a week and would hubby and I like to come out for a few days. Ah, I said, there is a possible solution to my issue! Hubby had vacation time coming, so we loaded up the car and hit the road for our 36 hour vacation trip. From where we live it's a four hour drive. 

Right before we left we found out we'd be making a pit stop in Mashpee (yes, that is really the name) where some very dear relatives were also vacationing. After dinner and some good laughs we headed to Plymouth. Before we left I looked up lighthouses in the area and found out that there was one near Plymouth called Plymouth Light. I didn't have a lot of time to research but I figured it couldn't be too hard to find. I mean, we were going to Plymouth, it had a lighthouse, and it was on the coast.

Yup.

It was raining when we got there so the romantic walk by the beautiful waters of Plymouth Bay was out. We settled for a crowded hotel room that included a three- and eleven-year-old. 

The next morning we headed out to drive around (we did have destinations in mind) and sister and kids went to the beach. Before we left we made plans to take an evening walking tour through the streets of Plymouth, including Burial Hill and two purportedly haunted houses. Details to follow in another post.

We returned from our jaunt around 4 p.m. Hoping to still have time to see the lighthouse, we asked at the front desk if they could give us directions to Plymouth Light as our GPS did not find it anywhere. She happily printed us directions and we were happy to see that it was only 10 minutes away, in a town called Ducksberry. That is exactly how it sounded. Turns out it is spelled Duxbury, but that would not make a difference in the end.

Scenery break. Plymouth Harbor in the evening:

She also told us that the lighthouse was called Bug Light. Interesting, we thought. We dutifully followed the directions with only one misstep and found ourselves in a residential area. Our directions took us down a very narrow dead-end street. This could not be right. We felt like criminals as we crept slowly down a street filled with pretty and pricey homes. And this is what we saw as the GPS chirped: you have reached your destination. (Yes, that is the end of the street.)

We looked left, then right. No lighthouse. I decided to take some pictures with the zoom and all of a sudden I saw it.

My husband stated the obvious. No wonder they call it Bug Light. I zoomed in as far as I could:

As it turns out, this was not Plymouth Light. Bug Light is a local designation for the Duxbury Pier Light. The Bug (another affectionate name) was built in 1871 to warn sailors away from the shoals off Saquish Head in Plymouth Harbor. It is still operational and has withstood efforts at modernization by a group of volunteers. The lighthouse has three levels and an unusual coffeepot shape. Hence the nickname 'Bug Light'. 

Or maybe not. It's a mystery to me.

Check out the link above for more information, including the restoration efforts.

Plymouth Light is also known as Gurnet Light. We never made it near this lighthouse, but if you're interested you can read more here.

I'll leave you with more pictures of Plymouth Harbor.

Coming soon - the rocks of Plymouth and Captain Kidd's 9/11 connection. 

And, have you ever walked through a graveyard at night? How about one that was established in the 1600s? Yeah, it was scary. More to come. Until then here's a teaser.

Breakfast at Saratoga

On August 3, 1863, the beautiful Saratoga Race Course was born. She is known by various nicknames - The Spa, The House of Upsets, The Graveyard of Champions, but to the folks who live hereabouts it's 'the Track'. And if the meet is in session, just say you're going to Saratoga and we'll know what you mean. Not the city, not the harness track, not the battlefield, although they're all great places to visit.

I know what you're thinking. The sign in the picture above says EST. 1864. The explanation is simple, I think. The Civil War was raging, the Battle of Gettysburg was one month old, and some wealthy men decided they were going to build a race track in beautiful Saratoga Springs, New York. Strange, but true. Saratoga was the escape destination of the rich and famous, not only for her mineral springs but also for the gambling. John Hunter, who would go on to be the first chairman of the Jockey Club*, William R. Travers, a very successful lawyer, and John Morrissey, an Irish immigrant/boxer/politician, partnered up to create the track. Today happens to be the end of Travers weekend, the biggest in the entire racing meet. The highlight is the running of the Travers Stakes, otherwise known as the Midsummer Derby, and named for Mr. William Travers. It has a purse of $1,000,000. 

The first running of the Travers Stakes was in 1864, the second meet of the new Saratoga Race Course. The first meet was four days long, and run on what is now the Oklahoma Training Track, across Union from where the present Race Course stands. The meet was only held for one year at the original location, hence 1864 on the sign.

When I started this blog post I intended to write about breakfast at Saratoga, but something amazing happened. This year marks the 143rd running of the Travers Stakes. Long shot Golden Ticket (33-1) and favorite Alpha (2-1) finished the race in a dead heat. Pretty cool. 

Tradition dictates that the canoe floating on the infield lake gets painted with the colors of the winning stable. The lake will now have two canoes.

Back to breakfast.

If you like getting up early, buffet breakfasts, and beautiful horses, Saratoga is the place to be at 7 a.m. during the meet. The added bonus is a free backstretch tour. Breakfast is served track side. You can sit and enjoy your meal while watching the horses warm up on the track. (You can also bring your own and sit on the track side bleachers, )

 

  
The backstretch tour takes you back to the barns where many of the horses are stabled. We got onto an old tram and were whisked away. Okay, not whisked but tram-ed. One thing about the track I should mention - hats. Lots of ladies wear them to the track.

Our first stop was meeting Buddy, a pony. If you know horses, you'll look at this picture and think, hmm, Buddy does not look like a pony. And he's not, technically. At the track, the race horses are horses and the exercise horses are ponies.

Our next stop was Clare Court, an exercise track built in 1902 by August Belmont, the man who financed the building of Belmont Race Track. In those days this area was Mr. Belmont's private training facility and called Surcingle. It was renamed for Tom and Anne Clare who were track superintendents from 1924 to 1960.

We were given an up close and personal look at the barns. 

Horses, horses, and more horses.

This is the poop pile. Trucks come up from Pennsylvania to collect it. It is used to grow mushrooms.

The starting gate training area. Horses are often re-schooled on using the gate to prevent delays at the start.

On the track in the backstretch.

 And finally, hoofprints in the sand.

Until next time!

*From Wikipedia: The Jockey Club is the authority for all Thoroughbred horses in North America, Canada, and Puerto Rico and maintains offices in New York City and Lexington, Kentucky. The Registry maintained by The Jockey Club, called the American Stud Book, dates back to the club's founding and contains the descendants of those horses listed, as well as horses imported into North America up to the present.

Lots of Pretty Things

Bouchercon 2012 is about six weeks away but I've already started packing.

One of the things I enjoy about Bouchercon (and ThrillerFest!) is meeting the authors who write the books I enjoy. And of course getting them autographed (my husband refers to this as a mission). (Much to my husband's dismay) I am bringing along a couple of suitcases full of books this trip, and (my argument is that) since we are driving this year I don't have to worry about excess baggage fess.

Some are from my bookshelves, but most are being acquired for this trip. Some have been lugged to previous conferences but my mission was not successful for various reasons. I am sure this trip will be no different, but whatever happens, I couldn't accomplish it without my husband's help.

First, I make a list of all the authors I want to see. Then I look at the schedule to see when each author is signing and make a note of it. Lastly, for each author I list the day and time, even if there are multiple times for one particular author. That way, if we miss one or the line is too long, we can try again another time. And if an author is only signing once we do that person first. Unless I need his help. my husband will wait for me at a convenient location, books ready for the hand-off. The hand-off occurs when when I return from a successful signing mission and get handed a new set of books for signing. 

Which mostly explains my husband's dismay, although this year one of his favorites will be there signing the last of the books we don't have. He is a Charlaine Harris fan (the Sookie books), and for a wedding present I got him all of her hardcovers and had them autographed for him (and to him). That particular mission was hard to do without him catching on but I managed. 

The picture shows just a few of the authors who will be "targeted" during my mission. I am very excited to have all of Elizabeth George's hardcovers making the trip with me. It will mean multiple trips through the line (she has 17 out right now) but it will be worth it. One author, now a friend, I met when she was a debut author at ThrillerFest. I've collected all of Julie Kramer's books since then. Robin Cook is a delightful man I've heard speak who writes gripping medical thrillers. Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol Higgins Clark are two authors my mom and I both enjoyed. I am looking forward to meeting both of them.  Linda Fairstein's legal thrillers keep me turning the pages to see whodunnit. Peter Farris is a new (to me) author whose book, Last Call for the Living, I have not yet read but anyone who puts 'sentence making' under his interests is a writer I'm sure I will enjoy. Chelsea Cain does serial killer well, a real-life evil that fascinates me.

There are many others I am looking forward to meeting, but this is just one aspect of the Bouchercon experience, one I am looking forward to in addition to the panels and get-togethers! Visiting a new city will also be a great part of the experience, especially since I've heard that Cleveland has a few ghosts lurking around and even a lighthouse or two or three ...

Beekman Arms, the Tavern

After our waiter took our order his order pad and checks went flying out of his hands and landed on the floor in a mess at my feet. I jokingly asked if that were the ghosts here at work and he laughed. Of course I asked him if the place was haunted and he said that from what he'd heard the various ghost hunters who'd investigated hadn't had much luck.

If you think that put me off from taking pictures you haven't been reading my blog.

And even if I were put off, who could resist taking pictures of a place that has seen so much of the history of our great country?

So, complete with orbs here and there, are pictures of the interior of the Beekman Arms.

This is in the tavern area. If you enlarge the picture you'll see an orb by the door on the upper left.

Another picture of the tavern area, orb-free.

A small dining room off the side of the tavern area. I took two pictures in a row of this area and the orb you see in the upper left appeared in both in the same place.

The sitting area, orb on door in the second picture.

An old rifle or musket.

The Beekman Room, orb-less.

More of the tavern area. (Yes, with an orb.)

The fireplace:

 Two more dining areas:

The Greenhouse Room:

The doorknocker:

The Beekman Arms is so worth a visit, if only because it is unique among the many places still standing so closely tied to our history that you can actually look and touch. You can sit and eat and drink where George Washington and many other historical figures did.

And that is cool.

George Washington Slept Here

He really did! And so did Philip Schuyler, Benedict Arnold, Alexander Hamilton, Horace Greeley, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, among others. More recent guests with recognizable names are Bill and Hillary Clinton. They stopped in for lunch.

'Here' is the Beekman Arms, the oldest continuously operating Inn in the United States located in Rhinebeck, New York. With three weeks left to my car lease and 3,000 miles to use up, my husband and I took a road trip downstate on a lovely but hot Saturday afternoon. We got a pretty late start but managed to fit in some neat locations, including Lyndhurst Castle and a picturesque drive up historic Route 9. Parts of Route 9 share the same route the Old Albany Post Road, a mail delivery road that connected New York City and Albany and followed the Hudson River.

My husband suggested dinner at the Beekman Arms, and when I took a look at the menu I was completely on board. They serve French Onion Soup!

The Inn sits on the main street, surrounded by historic buildings, restaurants, and homes. We walked around a bit before and after dinner. Rhinebeck is not far from Hyde Park, home of the best school for the culinary arts in the world, the Culinary Institute of America, otherwise known as the CIA. Yes, it shares those initials with another CIA, but in these parts most of us equate 'CIA' with pies not spies, among other culinary delights. (The culinarily-talented part of the family attended CIA.)

William Traphagen opened Traphagen Inn in the early 1700s, in an area then known as Ryn Beck. In 1766 the inn and tavern was relocated by Arent Traphagen, son of William, to the town's crossroads, then the King's Highway and the Sepasco Trail. The King's Highway is today's Route 9. The Sepasco Trail is now Route 308, an old Indian trail that connected the Hudson River to Lake Sepacso. During the American Revolution the Arms was called Bogardus Tavern. In 1802 Asa Potter bought it and renamed it Potter's Tavern. At some point it became the Beekman Arms, although I have not been able to ascertain when. (For more on the history of the Inn see here.)

Today the crossroads lines the Rhinebeck Village Historic District, a 2.6 square mile area that contains 272 historical structures and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

The Beekman Arms is charming both inside and out.
 

We were greeted by a charming gentleman (Okay, I know I already used that descriptor but he really was charming!) who took us around and offered us a choice of seats. We found out later that his son had been our waiter, and he is currently a student at the CIA. We chose to sit in the bar area, which I believe is the oldest part of the building where the original tavern was located. 

I started the meal with the French Onion Soup, which was delicious. The soup was topped with Swiss and mozzarella, a perfect amount that enabled me to enjoy without having to chop up hefty chucks of cheese. If you are an FOS lover you know what I mean. It starts all warm and easy to eat but as the cheese cools it gets a bit more challenging. I love cheese just as much as the next gal, but too much of a good thing is, well, too much of a good thing. Hubby had the Wedge, a nicely plated chunk of iceberg lettuce with bacon and gorgonzola bleu cheese dressing. His only nit were the grape tomatoes that accompanied the salad. He does not like raw tomatoes of any kind, so that was no reflection on the salad. (I am not a big fan of raw tomatoes either, but I will eat them on a BLT! Otherwise what's the point of eating a BLT?)

For dinner I ordered the House Potato Gnocchi minus the chicken. It was served with blistered tomatoes and a basil pesto cream sauce. It was so tasty that hubby would not let me finish it because he wanted leftovers the next day. The blistered tomatoes were a pleasant surprise. They were the same grape tomatoes that adorned hubby's salad, but they were cooked. Cooked whole, and appearance-wise they looked as if they were still raw. So when I bit into one it burst and surprised me. Very nice. The basil pesto cream sauce was full of flavor and not too heavy.

Hubby had the Tavern Burger, complete with bacon, pepper jack cheese and horseradish sauce. He shared some of the house-cut fries that came with it. It was under protest but I reminded him that I was saving leftovers for him and that made him a bit more generous.

We also ordered two sides. We had to. First of all, we're both big fans of risotto, and when we saw parmesan reggiano risotto as a side we were forced to order it. My arms still hurt from the twisting. I say 'arms' because the other side we were forced to get was house-smoked bacon mac and cheese. I must say that R. Preston Faust, the executive chef, is totally out to ruin our diet.

I looked up the chef and found this:

Preston Faust came to the Hudson Valley to attend the CIA and got a job working for Larry Forgione at the Beekman Arms 1766 Restaurant while still in school. In 2001, the restaurant was renovated and renamed Traphagen Restaurant—Forgione's no longer involved, but Faust remained the chef. The idea was to honor Willem Traphagen, who founded the town of Rhinebeck and the tavern that became the Beekman Arms in 1766. Despite being the oldest continuously run hotel in the country, its food is contemporary and delicious. Last year, citysearch.com noted that Faust "continues Forgione's tradition of matching contemporary comfort food with rich local ingredients." (source)

The restaurant is now called The Tavern at the Beekman Arms, and if you're in the area or in the mood for a road trip, I highly recommend this place. We cannot wait to go back! 

Next time I'll share pictures of the inside, complete with orbs! Until then, enjoy anther picture of the gardens in front of the Arms.

And Happy Birthday to my history-loving Mom. I miss you.