On the way to the train

So we had a train to catch on Sunday morning in Albany. About two weeks ago I started to think about winter storms and icy early-morning highways, and we opted to book a bed and breakfast for Saturday night in Troy, NY. One of my rare bursts of genius.

The Old Judge Mansion bed and breakfast is so large that the old judge himself maybe be lurking in one of the many upper rooms. There is one parlor given over to the playing of Texas Hold'em poker tournaments on Sunday nights. There are downstairs public rooms that I saw, but hardly had time to inspect. Kindly hosts; firm beds; off-street parking; ample breakfast.

Oh, and good directions to several restaurants nearby. The first one we went to was booked until late April, so we went to another one, Loporto's, which was also very busy. But they squeezed us in at the bar and fed us mountains of food while the barman (who has worked at various jobs in the building since he was twelve) put on a show of pouring, mixing, shaking, and serving.

Troy and I had had a benevolent ignorance of each other before this past weekend, but now I am happy to have made the acquaintance. It's a former 'Richest Town in America' that looks through much of its downtown as though great old structures had been leveled without much thought to replacing them. But we very much enjoyed what is still standing. And we made the train on time on Sunday morning.