Today is Saturday, November 9, 2024. Elliot and I have returned from our excursion to Hobart, New York, the “book village of the Catskills.” We had a relatively good time exploring the village’s five bookstores and sampling delicious home-cooked food at the Hidden Inn, located in South Kortright, located about 15 minutes from Hobart. Initially, I wanted to cancel our reservation because of how I felt over the results of the election, but I was persuaded by one of my Austin House Diner friends to keep our plans as is. I’m glad we did, even though the trip upstate was quite interminable: about three-and-a-half hours. We stopped just two times: once in Larchmont for breakfast, and, second, in an upstate town whose name escapes me just about 40 minutes or so away from Hobart, for coffee and a corn muffin. Elliot had tea and a slice of apple pie.

At first, I was not impressed with the sites in Hobart since we arrived quite late on Friday, around 3:15 or so. We were able to scuttle into just one store, New York Books and Ephemera, which boasted more cookbooks that I’ve ever seen and several shelves of books dedicated to New York and its environs. Elliot immediately struck up a conversation with the amiable owner of the store, while I browsed the various aisles of books. Looking at the prices, I found the books not that inexpensive. Some books were $14 or more. I also didn’t like that most books were hardcover. I stumbled out of this bookstore and left Elliot with the owner. I walked into Quarry Books which, I learned, specializes in mysteries. There I picked up an Agatha Christie novel, Hallowe’en Party, featuring Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. This is always a good book to take along on a trip.

We eventually drove to our nighttime destination, the Hidden Inn. There we made contact with our amiable hosts, Kurt and Lisa DuBois, according to an internet page on the history of the landmark location. According to its history, the place has been around since 1893. After 120 years of continuous service, the establishment was closed in 2013 when, in 2022, its new owners acquired the inn and revitalized the property through extensive innovations.

We had to use the new staircase to take our belongings to our room on the fourth floor. We had a charming room on the last floor, replete with a high bed and beams in the ceiling. The bathroom was all new, with an enclosed shower.

We had a 6:30 reservation, so we made our way downstairs to the dining room. There we had several conversations with both Kurt and his wife, Lisa. They proved to be the best of hosts, providing us with information on the area and where to go. Kurt even showed us pictures of what he and his wife encountered in 2013 when they first bought the property, he said, for only $40,000. However, Kurt mentioned, the range of extensive renovations cost the pair over $800,000 to get the inn in proper working order. If they were doing the renovations today, I’m sure that figure would have easily been in the millions.

We were very satisfied with dinner. Elliot had the bang, bang shrimp as an appetizer, while I ordered the French onion soup. As his main dish, Elliot had the pork chop, while I had the beef short ribs. I even had my first alcoholic drink in a long time, a sea breeze. It was my birthday, so why not?

The next day we spent more time in Hobart going to the various bookstores we missed on Friday. But we had a more substantial breakfast at a local eatery called the Coffee Pot that oozed local charm like a baseball cap that announced “God, guns, and Trump” on a table. Yep, this little village was squarely in Dump’s backyard, as we came across so many “Trump-Vance” signs along the way. It was very hard to find signs of the opposition party gracing house lawns anywhere.

Erasing the image of Dump from my mind, I walked into the other bookstores looking for some bargains. At one bookstore, I found an old critique of Mark Twain entitled The Ordeal of Mark Twain, written by Van Wyck Brooks, in 1920. I thought this book would be enjoyed by Elliot’s oldest daughter, “Jody,” who is an English teacher at an elite high school in Massachusetts, and is a bit of a Twain specialist since she’s taught courses on Twain during her long career. I thought she might get a kick out of it, if she hasn’t read it already. Then I bought Willa Cather’s second novel, Oh Pioneers! as well. That was only $2.50. Elliot particularly enjoyed one bookstore, Adams’ Antiquarian Books, that contained many hardcover editions of Greek and Latin classics. There were many first editions on the shelves for any interested bibliophiles. I went to another bookstore, Blenheim Hill Books, where I bought a memoir called Lying by Lauren Slater.

After spending about two hours browsing the various gems in town, Elliot and I met to begin our long trip back to New York City. We stopped in a small town called Andes for lunch and then embarked on our three-hour commute back to Queens.

We got home close to 8 after stopping at a service stop on the Thruway for a bite and after stopping for gas in New Jersey.

So have a good Sunday.

And so it went!

Here is that cap found in the Coffee Pot.