Kingston, NY

We returned to Zendo from our stay in South Florida on Saturday, October 13. Georgio was happy to see us and we didn’t discover until it was time to go to bed that he intended to punish us for our extended absence. Jonny’s side of the bed was soaked through the comforter, two blankets, sheets and even the mattress pad.  What a pain!  We had to completely strip and remake the bed before we could go to sleep.  And this was the marina with the terrible washer/ dryer!

The next day we were expecting the arrival of one of our very good friends in Miami,  David Brayer.  He was visiting friends in upstate New Year (he’s from Rochester) and wanted to join us for a couple of days.  So while we waited for David to arrive, Lynn got a ride to the laundromat in town with three huge sacks of laundry (thanks to Georgio)!  Fortunately, this laundromat had mega washers and the whole task was completed in 90 minutes! 

By the time Lynn returned to Zendo,  Jonny had scrubbed the brown stains off of Zendo’s bow and  David had arrived so we were ready to shove off.

It was a dreary, chilly day and we started off driving from the flybridge.  But before too long we all went into the saloon so Jonny could drive from the lower helm. 

Fortunately, by the time we reached our Kingston, New York destination the weather had improved somewhat.  We had been here three years ago when we did the Down East Loop but had stayed at a marina on the other side of the river.  This time we tied up at the town dock which was much more convenient.

Kingston is an interesting and historic town and David had never been here so we wanted to show him the sights. We strolled through the lower town and  checked out the sights.  There was lots of older architecture and interesting shops. 

Then we headed up a hill to the upper town.  Lynn can never resist photographing laundry hanging out to dry, which has become a fairly rare occurrence these days.

It turned out to be a two mile walk but we were up for it, passing a number of murals along the way. 

There were a number of Ginko trees with really beautiful leaves.

We finally arrived at Keegan Ales where we rewarded ourselves with their local brews.

From there we walked to our favorite sight in Kingston, a four corner intersection where all the buildings are made of stone and date from the 1600’s.  This neighborhood, called the Stockade, is very hip and trendy with good restaurants and bars and lots of historic buildings.  We had made dinner reservations at a new Italian restaurant there that was highly rated.  We discovered a very cool bookstore and pub (called Rough Draft) in one of the buildings at that intersection and we spent some time browsing and checking out the interesting display of books before heading across the street for dinner.

At Palizzata we enjoyed a delicious dinner of various Italian delights prepared just a little differently. By the time we finished dinner, we were ready to Uber back to Zendo where after a short while we all hit the sack.  The next day we would take David on a quick  cruise down the Hudson where we would drop him off at a town where he could catch a train to the airport and return home to Miami.