Partying in Hudson

Kingston to Athens/Hudson, New York - 22 nautical miles sailes, 3 miles in dinghy, 7 kilometres walked

The Hudson River was full of debris from the heavy rains. We dodged the floating logs and sticks as best as we could but the keel pinged off many such objects completely submerged. Fortunately, the propellor survived unscathed.

After four hours we reached the town of Athens, but the free public dock which we had made use of in the fall was not yet installed for the season so we motored to the nearby anchorage and dropped the hook.

Our plan for today was to explore Hudson, the much larger town across the river and save Athens for tomorrow when we had some work to do to prepare the boat for the upcoming mast removal. So Dad and I had a quick lunch then hopped in the dinghy and motored across.

As Ana and I discovered on the way down, Hudson has a magnificent main street and is possibly the most woke mile in New York State with so many galleries, museums, lefty bookstores, boutiques, pride flags, and all the other things that make amazing towns amazing. Dad loved it immediately.

We stopped at a record shop and spent what felt like hours there browsing through the thousands of records, cd's, books, clothing, and magazines, to the sounds of the hundred-year-old blues music the grizzled and inifinitely cool owner was spinning on his ancient record player.

Next stop was the classic hardware store, right out of a movie set, where we met the owner Dennis McAvoy who talked our ears off about the long history of the store (going on four generations), American politics, the town of Hudson, and a dozen other topics. He reminded me of my dad's dad, who also ran a hardware store so many years ago and probably talked ears off many customers..

I felt compelled to take Dad to the pupuseria Ana and I visited in October, a groovy little joint with three tables, an entire Salvadorian family working, and a huge portrait of Frida Kalho on the wall. We devoured a bowl of nachos and two pupusas then said "Adios amigos!" and moved onto the wine shop where we picked up two fresh boxes of plonk.

We were about to crack open our wine boxes in the public park and doing some daytime spigot sucking when Dad's pub radar started pinging off the Governor's Tavern right around the corner. There we went, and there we stayed, until we had sampled most of the delectable brews on tap, struck up a friendship with the bartender, and watched as the place filled up with people, great crowd for a Tuesday. It's been a long time since I've sat in a bar for hours, and even longer since it was with my dad. We had so much fun.

We sloshed our way back to the dinghy, but not before spotting one more bar - the Half Moon, and thought we better stop in for a beer, just to keep things fair. It was good, but not as good as Governor's, and I was pretty sure the bartender was also the town drug dealer. Or maybe my inebriated brain was just making me paranoid. In any case, we had one beer, said farewell to Hudson and cruised back to SeaLight in the darkness of earth and mind.

It was late when we got back but not too late to make an amazing chili and drink a bunch more wine. It's nice being able to party on a Tuesday.