How to Relax

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REMINDER...valentine's day is coming and I have some lovely cards for your loved ones on Etsy. I have many more here that I have not listed, but peruse my site from time to time to see what I am up to. Tonight's cards are new items I listed this morning BEFORE I took a break and...went to the old Granite Hotel to spend a day at their spa, which is now the Hudson Valley Resort in Accord, NY. Smack in the middle of farm country, tucked back in the back roads of Ulster County, it is one of the several surviving Catskill Mountain resorts.

The Catskills were a haven to resorts in the latter 1800's, such as the Catskill and Overlook Mountain houses which have long burned down. After the depression, the hotel businesses took a nosedive, and it probably wasn't until the 60's or so that the Nevele Hotel, the Granite, the Homowack (yikes, what a name!)were hip places to go in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains. An easy drive from the city, a perfect mountain get away. Horses, ice skating, boats, swimming, games, music, stand up comics, drugs..remember, for me it was the 70's, still a good era for those of us who were a bit too young to get a good grasp on the 60's.

I worked at the Nevele hotel in the late 1970's, and what a party place that was! I was the photographer in the dining room on the weekend evenings, selling you photos the next morning. I was also the skinny girl in the colored bikini who rented you your bike or paddle boat to you on hot summer days. It was the summer that my heart was broken, that my father died, and my life changed forever.

Somewhere I have photos from that time, photos which MIGHT leave you rolling on the floor in hysterics, but I am digressing.

Karen and I went to do a spa day, where we worked out on the machines and took a very long sauna afterwards. It was only 8.00 to use the facilities, and a fair deal at that. It is not Mohonk, or the Emerson, but it was decent enough for the price.

After our weak mush state, we went to High Falls to the restaurant below the infamous Depuy Canal House (review written somewhere around Nov 10th..my fateful birthday.)called Chefs on Fire. We only had a drink, a sushi roll and some edamame, so I don't feel equipped to rate the experience. It is unique as it is under a 1700's or so building, surrounded by ancient stone and woodwork, and like its sister restaurant, the service is S L O W. Fortunately we were in no rush.

So here I sit m e l l o w and am heading to watch another episode of Rome. School tomorrow, and I am sure that will be a challenge unto its own. Till then,

Patti O

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