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Yeah, I don’t know a whole lot about Montreal but I know it’s really different and cool and weird. You’re 2-2.5 hrs from the Capital District too, which I know a lot more about (the farm’s just outside Troy, I grew up thereish)– if there’s some big cultural need you have, or like, a show you want to see, or something– big music tours come through SPAC in Saratoga, Albany has a symphony, Troy used to be a shithole but is now this yuppie’s paradise thanks to RPI and every hipster opening a restaurant. (I don’t know much about Schenectady but I hear their crack problem’s much less bad than it was. LOL my mom’s from there, I grew up making fun of it to annoy her.) The Capital District is Albany-Schenectady-Troy, and it often gets expanded to include Saratoga to the north too, because between the four of them, it adds up to a big city LOL. Like, Troy is a local food hub because of their farmer’s market, Saratoga has a secondary farmer’s market that’s got a ton of the Troy people’s second booths there– and Troy got its start because NYC is in range for a ton of those farms, so that’s why we have a world-class yogurt maker etc– Anyway, it’s all a bit strung out, but there’s stuff to do. (Also: Amtrak has a direct line from Montreal to NYC via Plattsburgh. The section between Albany and NYC is so gorgeous– sit on the west side of the train to watch the whole Hudson Valley, it’s breathtaking. So that would be an amazing weekend trip! Take the Amtrak to Penn Station if you’re feeling cooped up! It wouldn’t be cheap, New York isn’t, but gosh it’d be cool.)
One thing I know very little about is Vermont, but that border is right there. Yesterday, the (Republican!) governor of Vermont signed a bill to legalize possession of recreational marijuana, so that ought to make some interesting cultural changes in that region. I really know nothing, though; Vermont’s a weird beast I’ve lived most of my life within a couple miles of and have never really explored.
But I mean– the Adirondacks, mostly. That’s what Plattsburgh’s got. There are 46 peaks over 5,000 feet, some resorts that are over 100 years old, some lakes nobody ever goes to, canoe and portage routes that go a hundred miles, ski and snowshoe routes, tiny lakes full of waterskiers in summer, pine forests, old logging camps, moose and bear and deer, and a college specializing in hotel management right in the middle (Paul Smith’s). My childhood best friend had a family cabin up in Newcomb (the exact middle) on a pine-black pond 50 feet deep where you couldn’t see your feet and couldn’t hear any neighbors, and we’d sit on the dock and holler old voyageur songs for the echoes and the fish would nibble our toes, and then we’d run like hell from the dock spiders the size of dinner plates who could walk on water. I went out to watch the sunrise from that dock and then turned around and there was a bear between me and the cabin. It was totally unconcerned. I was not totally unconcerned. It went away, though.
Culturally it’s a vaguely red area in a quite blue state– but so’s the area around the farm, and despite the performative GOP-ness people are generally reasonably cosmopolitan in attitude. It’s all pretty racially segregated (so is Maryland, my Southern sister has found; Georgia was much more integrated) but there’s decent cultural open-mindedness; one of my good high school friends, the Glens Falls reporter, is a married lesbian and has noted that when she got married, even local politicians who’d been fighting to pass homophobic laws [that she’d been interviewing them about; the laws never passed] had still sent her congratulations cards for her wedding and been solicitous when her wife was having health problems. It’s like… they’re hateful in the abstract but when you actually meet someone it’s easier to be polite? And the region has a long history of resort traffic; Lake Placid in particular has historically been specifically very gay-friendly. (ha I googled quickly to see if I could find any notable news stories and iloveny.com, the official new york state tourism page, has several hits including “take a gay-cation in New York!”, the phrasing of which is fantastic.) Anyway you’re likely to see Trump and NRA bumper stickers but that’s usually the worst of it.
(Your picture was not posted)
Yeah, I don’t know a whole lot about Montreal but I know it’s really different and cool and weird. You’re 2-2.5 hrs from the Capital District too, which I know a lot more about (the farm’s just outside Troy, I grew up thereish)– if there’s some big cultural need you have, or like, a show you want to see, or something– big music tours come through SPAC in Saratoga, Albany has a symphony, Troy used to be a shithole but is now this yuppie’s paradise thanks to RPI and every hipster opening a restaurant. (I don’t know much about Schenectady but I hear their crack problem’s much less bad than it was. LOL my mom’s from there, I grew up making fun of it to annoy her.) The Capital District is Albany-Schenectady-Troy, and it often gets expanded to include Saratoga to the north too, because between the four of them, it adds up to a big city LOL. Like, Troy is a local food hub because of their farmer’s market, Saratoga has a secondary farmer’s market that’s got a ton of the Troy people’s second booths there– and Troy got its start because NYC is in range for a ton of those farms, so that’s why we have a world-class yogurt maker etc– Anyway, it’s all a bit strung out, but there’s stuff to do. (Also: Amtrak has a direct line from Montreal to NYC via Plattsburgh. The section between Albany and NYC is so gorgeous– sit on the west side of the train to watch the whole Hudson Valley, it’s breathtaking. So that would be an amazing weekend trip! Take the Amtrak to Penn Station if you’re feeling cooped up! It wouldn’t be cheap, New York isn’t, but gosh it’d be cool.)
One thing I know very little about is Vermont, but that border is right there. Yesterday, the (Republican!) governor of Vermont signed a bill to legalize possession of recreational marijuana, so that ought to make some interesting cultural changes in that region. I really know nothing, though; Vermont’s a weird beast I’ve lived most of my life within a couple miles of and have never really explored.
But I mean– the Adirondacks, mostly. That’s what Plattsburgh’s got. There are 46 peaks over 5,000 feet, some resorts that are over 100 years old, some lakes nobody ever goes to, canoe and portage routes that go a hundred miles, ski and snowshoe routes, tiny lakes full of waterskiers in summer, pine forests, old logging camps, moose and bear and deer, and a college specializing in hotel management right in the middle (Paul Smith’s). My childhood best friend had a family cabin up in Newcomb (the exact middle) on a pine-black pond 50 feet deep where you couldn’t see your feet and couldn’t hear any neighbors, and we’d sit on the dock and holler old voyageur songs for the echoes and the fish would nibble our toes, and then we’d run like hell from the dock spiders the size of dinner plates who could walk on water. I went out to watch the sunrise from that dock and then turned around and there was a bear between me and the cabin. It was totally unconcerned. I was not totally unconcerned. It went away, though.
Culturally it’s a vaguely red area in a quite blue state– but so’s the area around the farm, and despite the performative GOP-ness people are generally reasonably cosmopolitan in attitude. It’s all pretty racially segregated (so is Maryland, my Southern sister has found; Georgia was much more integrated) but there’s decent cultural open-mindedness; one of my good high school friends, the Glens Falls reporter, is a married lesbian and has noted that when she got married, even local politicians who’d been fighting to pass homophobic laws [that she’d been interviewing them about; the laws never passed] had still sent her congratulations cards for her wedding and been solicitous when her wife was having health problems. It’s like… they’re hateful in the abstract but when you actually meet someone it’s easier to be polite? And the region has a long history of resort traffic; Lake Placid in particular has historically been specifically very gay-friendly. (ha I googled quickly to see if I could find any notable news stories and iloveny.com, the official new york state tourism page, has several hits including “take a gay-cation in New York!”, the phrasing of which is fantastic.) Anyway you’re likely to see Trump and NRA bumper stickers but that’s usually the worst of it.
(Your picture was not posted)
