The Catskills Revisited
If you are an email subscriber you will already know that I haven’t been back to the Catskills since I left 3 years ago. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was more that life just got in the way. But then I had the opportunity to visit NY so I loaded up the dog, got a sitter for the chickens, and we hit the open road! I love taking back roads, and while there are lots of back roads between east TN and upstate NY, we only traveled them through the TN portion of the trip. We found lots of beautiful scenery and a lovely little coffee shop before heading to the interstate.
We drove the entire trip in one day. Unfortantely due to my wandering the back roads more than once it took us about 14 hours to get there. Our first stop was to lower Orange County, NY. I’ve spent some time there through my tenure as a NY State resident but this trip was specifically to visit there. We found a hotel centrally located to where we would be spending our first 2 days-between Port Jervis, NY and Milford, PA. And since it was more of a business trip, we didn’t spend a lot of time in Port Jervis, but we did have the best iced mushroom latte at Foundry 42! It was literally to die for. I wish I’d gotten another one.
We did however spend some time in Milford, PA. Such a cute town! I fell in love with it. Most of my photos from that area are of Milford. I took a quick walk around town while waiting for my dinner date, a very dear friend that I hadn’t seen in over 10 years! We met up at the XXX restaurant and thankfully the weather was just perfect for sitting on the porch. The food was amazing but this was more about catching up than anything. I’d missed my friend. Funny how we used to about an hour from each other but it took my return trip to the Catskills to actually get us together. I don’t think we’ll let 10 more years go by before we see each other again.
Next I headed back to my old stomping grounds-the Catskills. I was there scouting for upcoming events and it was truly a pleasure to see the area through a different lens. Where I see a lot of land being lost here in east TN to development, that is not the case there. There is still lots of open land being farmed or preserved.
I headed back to the sheep farm I lived on prior to moving to TN. It was really nice catching up with the proprietor, Gail. Anna Lee and I stayed in our old room which had been reimagined since we left 3 years ago. What a delight to see all the changes, and all the things that had stayed the same. Gail and I headed around the area stopping by places for lunch, for coffee, and just to poke around in shops.
One of our stops lead us to the North Branch Cider Mill in North Branch, NY. It had long been defunct when I lived there but I had read about the reopening and knew it was some place I needed to visit, and possibly scout as a venue for an event. The owners of the Cider Mill also own a shop in Livingston Manor, NY, and are well known for their aesthetic and their design work around the area. You can see that work displayed at Seminary Hill Cidery right in the heart of Callicoon.
The Cider Mill is not an operational one now, but it had more of a general store feel with specialty ingredients, locally produced food and products, and my favorite-a 100% cotton Catskills blanket made in Delaware County, NY (the next county over from where we were). I grabbed the green version up quick since they are phasing that one out. It will serve as my reminder of my return to the catskills.
The rest of our trip was much the same-visiting, thrifting, exploring under this new lens of event planning. I didn’t buy anything else worth noting, but I do get to tell Gail’s story for the local Upper Delaware newspaper that I’ve been writing for. Stay tuned for more information on that.
Anna Lee and I made our way back to Tennessee after a very full and very productive trip to the Catskills. I came home with lots of ideas and a much better sense of what I want this business to look like. Seeing the area again, but this time thinking about it from an event and hospitality perspective, gave me a lot to think about.
It was also just really good to be back. I had missed the Catskills, and it was nice to spend a few days there without feeling like I was trying to fit everything into a visit. This time, I got to look around, talk to people, find some new places, revisit some old ones, and start thinking about what might come next.
It was a really good trip and I feel refreshed and ready to tackle what’s next.
