Post Point

 

Ann and I were going to spend the night on the road.  She had found a dog friendly place in Ithaca that some friends recommended.  It was a sort of upscale bed and breakfast according to Ann.  The mention of “bed and breakfast” sent a chill up my spine—in my opinion these establishments were designed for the express purpose of psychologically neutering men.  Some readers might recall an earlier trip that Ann and I had made to a bed and breakfast in the Finger Lakes region.  The proprietor, Mitch, still appears in my nightmares occasionally.  Ann assured me this would be different.

 

Sure enough, when we got to Ithaca and knocked on the door, the man who answered could be Mitch’s cousin.  He met us at what appeared to be the front door but then sent us to another door that apparently was reserved for guests.  The other door entered into the same room as the door we had knocked on initially.  He made us wait there for several minutes before inviting us in.  I did not like him.

 

He was at that normal innkeeper age—too old to do anything productive but not old enough to have absorbed any wisdom.  His dress was post-hippie casual—baggy jeans, an untucked shirt and wooly socks stuffed into slipper-like shoes of some sort.  He had the air of a man who was stuck in his ways, yet worthless.

 

We would be staying in a separate carriage house down the street so thankfully there would be no bonding with other guests at breakfast.  We took his directions, drove to our carriage house and unpacked.  The place was perfectly nice but had been tricked up with too many cool design features—edgy art, a bathroom that was part of the upstairs room, open sight lines from the upstairs to the lower floor.  This latter feature meant that if Daisy took a wrong step in the dark she would end up falling to the floor below (and in Ann’s mind, to her death).  This did not sit well with Ann.  She improvised barriers to keep Daisy alive.

 

We walked a few blocks into central Ithaca to get dinner.  It was late so we went to a restaurant/bar that we had been to the prior year and ordered clams and a couple of salads.  It was not the Point, but eased reentry a bit.  After dinner we went back to the killer carriage house and did a face-plant.

 

 

Monday

 

We woke up fairly early and I started rooting around in the small kitchen for coffee and anything else I could find.  I made a pot of coffee and discovered a basket of scones and muffins which were the breakfast part of the bed and breakfast.  These were said to be homemade by the proprietor’s wife.  If so, she may be the worst baker in upstate New York.  It is hard to screw up a muffin and even harder to screw up a scone.  She managed to do both with flying colors.  We made up for it by driving up the road to a local coffee shop we knew of from our previous vacation.  We got a double latte for me and a tea for Ann.

 Wierd Dog Lady

We drove home on the Southern Tier highway through southern New York State, a beautiful drive with very little traffic.  We got home in time for Ann to go to yoga and for me to stop by the office.  We reconvened for dinner at our local Pub in Gates Mills and toasted to a great weekend.

 

Can’t wait to see what David and Paul do for their 61^st!!