An Adventure along Harlem Valley Rail Trail and the Culture hub Wassaic

Wassaic

A couple of months ago we loaded the bikes onto our car and drove to Wassaic. Just like many other small villages and hamlets around Dutchess County, Wassaic has roots from the 1700’s. You can get to Wassaic by taking Metro North and Harlem line from 125th street in East Harlem. We’ve been here before, but that time we ventured into the old mill, Wassaic Project, and discovered cool art. Wassaic is not only known for Wassaic Project, but this is also the start of the Harlem Valley Rail Trail that can take you to Millerton, and soon even farther. It is almost 20 miles in total (to Millerton and then back to Wassaic again), so it is still below the 25 miles or so we did in the city that nearly killed me. And now, when I finally press publish we’ve returned to Wassaic many more times, and even done the bike ride yet a second time. The second time was right after it had finally been official that Biden had won the election. There were celebrations in Millerton with a small parade, and at Wassaic Lantern Inn they served Victory Milk Punch. Maybe it’s not that hard to figure out what political view many of the cool places around here have. There are plenty of supporters of the other party here too, so don’t be fooled.

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You could think that Wassaic is yet another little small and boring village, or hamlet, but I think Wassaic is up and coming, slow and steady. Maybe we should even buy a house here, if we had the money. Not yet, but maybe a project for the future.

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Harlem Valley Rail Trail

We were pretty stoked even before we started to pedal along the rail trail. Everything felt so great, the move, the countryside, the nature, the cool places we’ve found. We biked past horses and cows, that is the most common animals to see around here, because we live in the countryside now. Harlem Valley Rail Trail follows the old railroad and also all the old villages and hamlets.

We arrived to Millerton surprisingly fast, and what a cute place. Millerton is a lot bigger than Wassaic, which mean more people. We walked along Main Street and found out that there are more than one antique store here. That seem to be the rule, at least two antique stores and one diner.

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After some ice-coffe and a small lunch we got back up on the bikes and started the ride back to Wassaic. It felt a lot faster to get back, and I think it is slightly uphill to get to Millerton, which gives you some good speed coming back to Wassaic.

Culture

I mentioned earlier that Wassaic feels like a small culture hub out here in the countryside. And besides Wassaic Project this little hamlet has Wassaic Commons, which probably reminds you of a small farmers market but you can also rent a bike here, or fix your own bike if it needs some light tuning. During the summer and late fall Wassaic also have a small pop up stand where they have sold everything from bread to LP records. Wassaic Lantern Inn is an old hotel and speakeasy bar that just turned 130 years. Wassaic Lantern Inn was actually bought by the owners of Wassaic Project and they are old real estate developers from the big city. It is worth mentioning that the chef at the lantern inn has worked at a Michelin star restaurant in the big city, and the food is really really good. Recently we discovered that there used to be a brewery here too. Unfortunately they got so popular that they outgrew the space in Wassaic and moved to Brooklyn. It would have been the last deciding reason to move to Wassaic otherwise, hehe. Apparently it also used to be a dream for the owners of Lantern Inn and Wassaic Project to establish a brewery in town, not sure why they never went for it. We have been to Wassaic Lantern Inn many times now and it is one of the only places we have been to that serve food and drinks since the pandemic started in March. They only serve food and drinks outside and face masks while you order and walk in and out of the beer garden is a must. Last weekend was the final days for outside dining though so if anyone wants to enjoy their food they have to order take out from now on. I hope we will be able to enjoy their food outside in their beer garden in the spring, as long as this pandemic is under control.

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Things I have heard on the news Lately pt. 2

The one I never Published

News Hours and Science related Articles

After the first “Things I have hear on the news Lately” I was very excited to get another one out. I just needed to get more news. Well, and here we are more than a year later or so. I finally decided that I should publish this, even though it’s not something I have heard on the news lately, but rather a follow up from the previous one.

April 2019

After several weeks, including landing a job in this big city, it’s time to do another round of what I have heard, read or seen these past months. If you want to read the previous post you can click here. Again, many of these news will probably either be about NYC or science, but of course something else might sneak into the mix as well. As a follow up from last time I did a “what I heard on the news lately” you can listen to this short segment, about how the measles outbreak started. We are getting extremely close to forcing people to get vaccinated, which also is probably not the best way to combat this, but the problem is how can we re-teach people about vaccination? This all ties back to what I wrote about earlier too, that the human psychology is extremely cool and fascinating but also very narrow minded (“Illusion of explanatory depth” - Why Facts Don’t Change our Minds). Once you started to believe in one thing, it is extremely difficult to switch those beliefs to something else. Another article that talks about somewhat the same idea is the recent one from New York Times “Why fiction trumps truth”.

1. NYCHA and other landlords. New York housing authority seem to be under fire most of the time. Since we moved here to NYC and Manhattan I don’t think I have heard anything positive about NYCHA. It is unclear who to blame for the situation they are in now, but they are backlogged financially, about 32 billion dollars. Some NYCHA residents in Manhattan recently got their playground upgraded, an upgrade that cost about 770,000$. This is great you might say, and yes it is, the playground is scheduled to reopen this summer. However the problem is that NYCHA wants to replace it with a new residential tower. I understand that we are also in need of more housing, especially for low income people, but what is the point to spend so much money on a playground if it’s going to be taken away anyway? You can also hear or read horror stories about tenants living in awful conditions; mold, leaks and broken locks. This is not exclusive to NYCHA of course, other landlords are equally bad, for instance residents bathroom ceilings falling in, pet parrots eaten by rats and the list goes on. One hot topic is lead paint, like the story I heard on the radio the other week about a mother with her four kids who now is suffering from lead poisoning. The mother found out that the her kids had started to eat lead paint from the walls and window sills, after they discovered that the paint taste very sweet. After a routine control at the doctors, they found out that the kids led level was dangerously high, and so they found out that they did indeed have led painted walls. Just like so many other current residents in NYC. This mom and her four kids are of course not the only people affected by lead, and lead poisoning, and there are probably other landlords who also couldn’t care less about that, just like I sometimes feel as if NYCHA doesn’t either. This is not any recent news, this has been going on for decades, but the question is whose fault is it. It’s a messed up system that completely uses low income people, people who have no other choice than to stay in awful conditions. And while some property managers and landlords get sued for not improving the living standards for the tenants, they most often are only fined a tiny little sum, making it easy for them to continue to break the law over and over again.

2. Ticks and allergy to red meat, aka “alpha gal syndrome”. Did you know that there is a new disease spreading extremely fast that is spreading via ticks. It was believed that this new disease came exclusively from the lone star tick, a tiny little creature that you can find here in the US. However, this tick does not exist in Europe, which has also seen the exact same diseases, and the diseases can also be found in Australia. Ticks do not only carry this pathogen for red meat allergy, but of course, also Lyme disease, carried by the black legged tick. These are two very good reasons to always check your body for ticks, to make sure you do not get any of these diseases. The problem is though, that some ticks, like the black legged one are so tiny it’s almost impossible to spot it. I remember when we went camping in Chequamagon National Forest for memorial day weekend a couple of years ago and we picked ticks of our body and car for days during that trip. If you are interested in knowing what pathogens ticks are currently carrying in your area, or where the hot spots of ticks are, you should download this app called The Tick App. It’s a type of citizen science app and is incorporated in a larger study by researchers from Columbia University, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. The app gives you updates about current hot spots of ticks and their pathogens, and you can also report your own.

When We biked to Millbrook

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Around here, where we now live, there are many smaller roads. Roads that will take you past farms and horses. A month or so ago we took our bikes and went to Millbrook. It’s about 6 miles, one way to get there.

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We biked past bunnies, turtles, goats, cows and horses. We really live on the countryside now. 190 people live in the nearest hamlet, and in Millbrook about 1500 people reside.

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It still feels pretty weird that this is our home now, and that we are able to do all of this directly from our house. Life changes, and isn’t that great. This general area will be our permanent home now. We’ve been moving every second year the past 4 years so it will be nice to finally settle down.

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Millbrook is just like any other little village around the countryside in the US, although the villages here on the east coast are older than elsewhere. This general area houses many rich people, and you can clearly see that while biking or driving around. There are large mansions that you can buy for 13 million dollars here, if you can afford it. Many of these places you can’t necessarily see from the road, but the stone walls and fancy entrances to the driveways are telling those stories. But just like any other place there are houses that barely stands around here too.

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Once we got to Millbrook we didn’t really spend too much time there. We bought a coffee and something to eat and went to the park. After maybe an hour we got on our bikes and biked home again. You could clearly tell that we were going slightly downhill now, which probably explains why I felt like I was dying biking there.

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