New England Trip - Part III

From Cara's Journal - Saturday, 10/7/89 - mileage 736?? - 9:00 AM - Albany, NY

We've had a great night's sleep in our expensive bedroom with the leaky bathroom faucet and the furnace that heats up the room to 100 degrees, and we are now ready for more adventure.  As usual Kim is the driver and she is heading to Amenia, NY.  Although Pete (a summer co-worker of mine who attends boarding school here) won't be thee we thought we could get a look at the school so we aren't wasting time on Monday driving around.  We've eaten at a coffee shop in a service area and made our potty runs so we won't have to stop again.  We should be Amenia in about 30 minutes.

mileage 73920 - 5:00 PM - Litchfield, Connecticut - Bantam Youth Hostel
We have now come to our last stop for the night.  The trip here was full of the adventure we'd been seeking.  Amenia is another small, quaint (and I stress the word small, no AAA pop) town.  There is a hotel but for three people we would have to rent two rooms at $35 each.  I believe it is the only hotel here, but that isn't a problem as we are planning on staying in New Paltz Monday after dinner with Pete.  We found the Kildonan School that he attends, and we drove around, parking once to walk.  It is confusing because the school is so spread out over so much territory, and we didn't know what was what.  We did find the lacrosse field and I took pictures in case they lock Pete up and we can't see him.  I can at least show him pictures to prove we were there.

We left Amenia and spent the next several hours searching for our youth hostel.  Once again we had not eaten since breakfast and tempers were coming to the boiling point.  We all have different temperaments - Kim gets cranky, Maya gets whiny, and I just start fading.  We tried to the follow the map in our hostel book, but we were getting nowhere fast.  We finally stopped at a tag sale (we don't know what these are, but Connecticut has lots of them) and asked an elderly couple for directions.  Here is the conversation:

Kim:  "Excuse me?  Could you tell me where the AYH is please?  Do you know?"

Man:  "Youth Hostel?"

Woman:  "Oh, you know Fred, it's right by Hazel's house."

Man:  "Hazel's?"

Woman:  "Yes.  Right there by Hazel's"

Me: (whispering)  "Ask them where the hell Hazel lives!"

Man:  "Oh, yeah, down my Hazel's!  You need to go out here and turn left.  Then turn at the first street on the left and the place is on your right a bit up the road."

Kim:  "Ok thank you."

Woman:  "It's down past Harrison's lumber."

Me:  "Thank you."

Kim:  "Okay, thank you."

Maya: (snoring) as she slept through the entire conversation

We followed the directions a few miles down the road and then a few more miles down the road until we finally pulled in at Popeye's Ice Cream Place and asked for directions.  The kid who gave us the directions lived next door to the hostel (he might have been Hazel's son for all that I know) and he promised his directions would get us there.  They did and we were dismayed to see that we had driven past the sign about four times.

When we started on this vacation the plan was to stay in American Youth Hostels.  Kim had had some experience with them and her mother helped us get a membership.  Our information about hostels told us:  they are supervised by resident hostel managers; they are located near many attractions; they have common rooms to meet new friends; they have kitchens to cook in; they have mattresses, pillows, and some have blankets.  We brought along bedding just in case.

The hostel manager running the Bantam Lake Youth Hostel, was named Trish, and she was a ding-dong.  She was very nice, friendly, and good at her job, but what a ditz!  We were put into the bunkhouse (where the heat wasn't working) in a sparse, cold, dusty, cobwebbed room with five bunk beds.  Maya and I weren't sure if we were in the army or a concentration camp; however, we chose the former as there was toilet paper in the cold, dusty, sparse bathroom.  We have been promised a room inside the house tomorrow as we are booked for two nights here.  There is a group from Seattle here, ten women and one man in their 60's and they leave tomorrow so we get their room.  The hostel has a sitting room, a kitchen, a dining area, and a huge basement that looks like Dr. Frankenstein's headquarters.  The shower is located in the deepest depths of the basement.  Good thing I got in that 45 minute one yesterday.  It doesn't look like this place will have hot water either so I just may have to forgo the shower tonight. (Oh, I hear gasps!)

We have met a few of the people from Washington.  Their leader is a man from Boston.  His name is Al Kenney and he is very friendly.  The ladies are in the kitchen cooking this huge meal and Al told us that they do this every night.  He said it's like having eleven grandmothers.  After dinner Al played cards with us until 10:00 pm.  We taught him how to play Euchre and he had beginners luck, winning every game.  Maya didn't know how to play either so it made the teams even.  It was a nice first evening...that was until we stepped outside on the way to the bunkhouse.  Bitter cold!  We froze just walking the three steps to the bunkhouse so you can imagine how it was inside.

We had a heater that plugged into an outlet, but the only outlet was in the light socket above our bunks and it already had the fire alarm plugged in to it.  I could just see the damn heater catching on fire and we wouldn't be warned in time because we unplugged the smoke alarm.  Lucky for us, the decision had already been made for us.  One of the ladies sharing our room had plugged in the heater.

When we had been choosing our bunks earlier in the day Maya made the statement that "heat rises" so we all chose the upper bunks.  Unfortunately two women bikers had the bunk the farthest from the door so we were left with the ones directly next to the door, which was broken and wouldn't close all the way.  Kim was against the wall that the door was on, and I was in the bunk right near the door.  We put Maya the farthest away because she had this horrible hacking cough and we didn't think she should be exposed to the clean, cold Connecticut air.

Lights out at 10:30 PM in this hostel so we traipsed over at about 10:20.  Of course everyone was already in their bunks and sound asleep.  Al was also staying in our bunkhouse and he hopped in bed and was out right away.  We messed around in the bathroom, hopping around to keep our blood circulating and giggling.  Finally we knew the time had come and we would have to sleep.   Kim and Maya had women sleeping under their bunks so we had to hoist Kim into her bunk so not to disturb or step on the women below her.  She climbed into her sleeping bag and was out.  I climbed into my bunk, told Maya to turn out the light, and then told her to climb into my bunk to then crawl over to her bunk.  She followed these instructions only she climbed on top of me to get to her bunk; lots of laughter not to mention jostling and jiggling of the beds.  These bunk beds were put together with thin metal tubing that would bend if a rock was thrown directly at it.  If you sighed the entire bed shook.  Maya's bunk and my bunk were hooked together so that every time I moved, Maya's entire bunk moved and vice versa.  The women below Kim and Maya never moved.  I thought they were both dead, frozen, since they never moved, and Maya and I were moving every 15 minutes while we tried to fall asleep.  This made us laugh even harder into our pillows, the beds shaking.  Maya coughed.  The beds shook.  I blew my nose.  The beds shook.  It was a riot, but we finally calmed down and tried to sleep.  We couldn't and we couldn't talk either so we wrote plots in our heads.  Then Maya had to tell me her plot and we got to laughing again and the beds shook.  We just couldn't win.

We decided we really had to try our best to sleep.  I was lying awake thinking, and I kept hearing this scratching noise.  I was sure it was Maya tapping her hands or scratching the mattress trying to make me laugh.  I ignored her, determined not to laugh.  Suddenly Maya says out loud, “What the hell is that noise?”  I burst out laughing because I had thought it was her!  We listened and I leaned over to listen to the woman under her bunk.  Sure enough it was coming from her.   She wasn’t frozen dead!  She was making this weird snoring noise that sounded like she was taking in air and then puffing it out.  I was sure her cheeks were full of air as she puffed out because it was such a loud noise.  I got to laughing so hard that I started crying, and Maya couldn’t understand what I was saying.  Then the lady started coughing and wheezing and chomping her lips together.  She was so loud that Maya started shaking the bed on purpose so that she would wake up and stop it.  I’m amazed we even got to sleep.  We can hardly wait until tomorrow night