Day 8: Piermont NY

Monday, October 12 (Week 2)

Cousins

In the morning, my sore throat felt no worse, but it was not the same for Sandra. She was feeling quite bad and decided to stay in the hotel and sleep some more while the kids and I went to meet the Lorens for breakfast at the Town Diner in East Windsor. Present were (left to right in photo) Marlene, Paul, David, Natalie, Becky, Benjamin, Allie, Philip, Loraine, Gary and Jamie. After a big breakfast and lively conversation, we said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel to get Sandra, who was still feeling poorly. Since we had no more formal events planned for the rest of the trip, we wanted to send David's and my suits back home with Natalie. I had been so disgusted by our over-sized luggage situation, that I decided to send my large suitcase back with her with the suits and a few other things inside. That left only Sandra's large suitcase, but at least there was only one large one to deal with. We had time before we needed to be at the airport to drop Natalie and Benjamin, so we decided to head to Paterson, NJ, where Sandra's grandma Frieda was born and her father had run a textile mill. Traffic was bad and by the time we got there, we didn't have enough time to sightsee. The area was economically depressed, we were the only white-skinned people in sight, and we were not sure if it would be a good idea to walk around anyway. We didn't know it at the time, but we hadn't seen anything yet! 

We headed back to Newark to drop Natalie and Benjamin at the airport. Somehow we ended up on the surface streets of Newark. That was an educational experience, particularly for David. Lots of people (mostly men) hanging out on the street. No one working, no one with any place to go or anything to do on a Monday afternoon. We were the only white-skinned people we saw, even in cars. It made us nervous, but no one paid us any mind and my interactions with other drivers were all cordial. We finally made it to the airport and said our goodbyes. We needed to talk to the Enterprise Rental Car people because our electronic toll pass did not seem to be working. I was worried about pulling into the car rental return, because I did not think we would be able to get the car out again, so we decided to find an off-airport Enterprise office. Sandra dialed a location into the GPS and we headed out. Within a short time, we were on the streets of some very bad looking Newark neighborhoods. We decided to bail out and find a freeway so we could jump to light speed and get out of Newark. I figured I'd find another Enterprise office in some safer looking town and hoped that we wouldn't have to take many toll roads en route, or if we did, that there would be some way to resolve the fact that we seemed to be breaking the law at every toll booth.

View from the West side of the Hudson River

We eventually got on the freeway. After accidentally almost getting on the George Washington bridge at the cusp of rush hour (requiring me to drive like a NY cab driver to avoid that mistake), we started heading up the beautiful Palisades Parkway along the West side of the Hudson River. Though most of the trees were still green, a few had begun to turn spectacular shades of yellow and red. We made our way to the small town of Piermont, where we were staying in our first Airbnb of the trip. We were a bit early to meet the owner, so drove into the center of town and got some dinner (Confetti - Italian, nice ambience and sidewalk dining, but expensive for mediocre food). There is a large piece of ancient machinery in the middle of the town center park, called The Flywheel. it was part of a steam engine that drove a cardboard box factory. When they tore down the factory to clear the area to make the park, the wrecking ball just bounced off the flywheel, so they decided to leave it there as a sort of monument to the town's industrial heritage, though there is no sign explaining this and I had to get the info online (http://piermontlibrary.org/piermont-history/what-piece-junk-flywheel-park/). 

The living room in Piermont Airbnb

When it was time to meet the owner of our Airbnb, we headed over to the house. Not all the houses were clearly numbered, so it was hard to identify which was ours. I was certain it would be one of the two large, beautifully renovated old homes, but it turned out to be the run-down dumpy looking one next-door, with the old Rambler in the driveway. The owner met us at the door. She was very nice and friendly and the place had some charm, but it was pretty dirty and not really set up to receive guests. We were the third guests she had had and she said she was still learning how to run the place as an Airbnb. As an example, she pointed out that there was no table to eat at, explaining that she and her husband never eat at a table and so it didn't occur to them to provide one. Nor were there any waste baskets. As this was our first Airbnb, and as we were to be staying in others for most of the trip, and as they are non-refundable reservations, we were a bit concerned that we would have to deal with these type of issues for the whole trip.

Famous drummer at Thunderdome Studio

On the flip side, the place did come with some interesting and unusual amenities, including an organ with a Leslie speaker and a recording studio in the basement, complete with a drum set and a collection of vintage amplifiers and quarter inch tape machines. In fact, the basement and house are a bit of a museum of ancient audio equipment and guitar pedals. Our host said we were welcome to play with any of it. Her husband has the studio and is also an artist. The house was decorated with his large paintings, all of which were a bit unsettling, if not downright ugly with scary looking faces. David had to sleep on the couch because the second bedroom was serving as the control booth for the recording studio. Fortunately he is old enough now to not be frightened of the art and refuse to sleep there.

Sleeping Beauty

Sandra went to bed early and David and I spent the evening reading and writing. I called Enterprise and they told me they would contact the FBI and call off the manhunt for a rogue Rogue blowing through all the toll booths without paying. Actually, what they said is to start paying cash and they would reimburse me for the credit card charges I was going to see as a result of the car's license plate being captured as we blew through the toll plaza. About 10:00 PM, an air raid siren went off in town. I had noticed the siren devices when we were at dinner in the town center. Now it was time to go online and find out what it was for. I learned that the Indian Point nuclear reactor is just up the river a few miles and the siren indicates a nuclear disaster. Instructions online say to tune into certain radio or TV stations, but none of the TV stations were talking about any sort of emergency. I texted Heidi about it and she said it was normal for the siren to go off and not to worry about it. It seemed a bit late for a siren test, and indeed, it went off a couple more times in the middle of the night, but we never did hear about any nuclear disasters.