What to do, what to do.

Ya’ll, we are rural. I mean, rural rural. I mean, you have to drive 20 minutes to get to a bank, and almost an hour to get to a wal-mart. I mean the-town-clerk-also-runs-the-liquor-store rural, I mean the-closest-stoplight-is-two-towns-away rural, I mean “the-best-coffee-for-a-hundred-miles”-is-shit-but-I-still-believe-its-reputation rural. That’s how rural we are.

Accordingly, my wistful wishlist of things I’d like to do includes an awful lot of leaving Springfield Center. I have a lot of conversations that go like this:

“We’re only four hours from Montreal!”
“Uh huh.”
“And only four hours from NYC!”
“Uh huh.”
“And only four hours from Boston! I’ve never been to Boston! Can you believe I’ve never been to Boston?”
“Uh huh.”
“And really, it’s just one hour to Albany, and then three hours by train. Doesn’t that sound wonderful! Let’s go to Montreal!”

[I’m the one with all the exclamation marks, and William is the “uh-huh”er, in case you didn’t figure that one out on your own.]

The problem with this fantasy is that it’s a Saturday morning and William is working. And the season hasn’t really started yet. Once things really pick up, he’ll work Sundays, too, and have one day off per week if he’s lucky - and that day will be Wednesday. A Tuesday night in Canada is not precisely the same thing as a weekend in Canada… and a little harder to justify.

So the question becomes, what is here to do around here - as in, less than four hours away? Fortunately it’s an absolutely beautiful area. We’ve done the closest hike already, a leisurely little trail in the state park just four miles away, but word at the opera is that the Finger Lakes area has some wonderful trails less than an hours’ drive away. We’ll be checking at least one of them out tomorrow.

The roads are also pretty bike-friendly; not a lot of drivers on them, since we’re so incredibly freaking rural. And while there’s lots of rolling hills on the horizon, the roads hug pretty close to the lakes, so they’re quite flat - good for my lazy, out-of-shape butt. We took a bike ride up to the closest gas station the other night (two towns away, I’m not making this stuff up, and they pump your gas FOR you because they haven’t figured out what century it is).  It was probably the most invigorating beer run I’ve ever been on. I think everyone should have to bike a few miles through green hills and beside glistening lakes before buying a six-pack. It would be great for our collective health, both physical and mental.

Speaking of beer, there are quite a few little breweries in the area, including some that make some darn good beer. So on my more-probable, less-than-four-hours-travel-time things-to-do list, I’ve included a lot of brewery tours. 

Hikes, bikes, and beer - honestly, that pretty much exhausts the immediately-surrounding possibilities. Not completely, of course: we went to the local art museum already (maybe too soon - should have saved it for later in the summer) and there are also museums dedicated to sheep and baseball. Pity I’m not into sheep or baseball. We also drove for an hour last night and went to a drive-in: the closest movie theater is 45 minutes away, so might as well go a little further and get two shows for the price of one, right!? So we’ll probably do that again, although dusk comes pretty late and two movies last a long time, resulting in a terrifying drive home at 2 a.m. when the rain is pouring down (it rains like every day, I swear) and the roads are potholed and poorly marked.

And a fifteen-minute drive away, there’s a little bar that also serves Chinese food. (Well, the Chinese food is made at the restaurant next door, but you can order at the bar and they bring it right to you, so… yep, a bar that serves Chinese food). It’s not much of a destination in itself - all wood paneling and locals who look at you funny, since you are immediately obvious as an opera person - but on Thursday nights they have karaoke. And a lot of people who wind up working backstage or in admin at an opera house have an extraordinary amount of vocal training… which makes for a hell of a karaoke show.

There you have it. My nearly-exhaustive list of things to do in this little corner of the world.. Meanwhile, if you need me, me and my bookshelf will be right over there.