On Rhinebeck: part the 2nd

Hope everyone on the East Coast has made it through Sandy alive and well! CP and I fared quite well--we kept power, and the only damage is a rather large tree branch now resting on our front lawn that I suppose we'll have to hack up into firewood this weekend.

Just want to finish up the Rhinebeck-related blogging, and then hopefully later this week I can tell you all about how my Rhinebeck sweater didn't fit.

Also, this is a giant bunny:

Hotel:

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Kingston. My primary concern was that the big, green Holiday Inn sign did not match the hotel itself, which was accented in turquoise and didn't say "Holiday Inn" anywhere on its exterior. But as the only other thing in the parking lot was a pizza shop, by process of elimination, we determined that it was, in fact, our hotel.

It was fine. Nothing special. Our room was out of the way, no excessive noise from the restaurant or event room, and we could get back and forth to our car from a side door, and didn't have to traipse through the lobby repeatedly. The wi-fi was lacking--supposedly it existed, but would only connect if you were in certain parts of the (quite small) room, and even then, was so slow, web pages timed out.

Last year we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fishkill, and though it was further away from the festival, it was much nicer. Also, no toll--it's only $1.50, I believe, and we have an EZ Pass, but if we didn't, I would've been annoyed paying it every time we wanted to go somewhere.

Excursions:

We arrived around 4pm on Friday, and though it was raining, we wanted to do something. We decided to check out Woodstock, NY. It was . . . disappointing. Perhaps because it was drizzling, it was dead, and most of the shops were closed. The ones that were open seemed a bit bizarre. Antiques and chocolates? Tacos and ice cream? We were hoping to kill some time in a coffee shop, but there wasn't one.

Food:

We made reservations in advance at 2 restaurants in the area: Terrapin in Rhinebeck, and Pan Zur, a tapas restaurant in Tivoli.

Terrapin:

I was mildly annoyed when we first arrived--we were a few minutes early, so couldn't be seated right away, but couples coming in behind us somehow were. I assume each reservation is assigned to a particular table, so if the diners before you are lingering, you wait, while people coming in after might have been assigned to a table previously occupied by speed eaters. I personally think is a terrible model, but I'm not in the restaurant biz.

More importantly, though, the atmosphere was cozy (lots of knitters!) and the food was delicious. The menu was varied, portions were generous, and they even had a few non-alcoholic "cocktails" for the preggos. CP had a salmon dish, I had pumpkin ravioli and we finished with "coffee and donuts"--mini pumpkin donuts with coffee ice cream.

Highly recommend.

Pan Zur:

This place . . . where do I start?

The menu we saw online was not the menu we got at the restaurant. While I know restaurants often have seasonal menus that may change, I assume they will try to keep the same balance: a mix of meat and non-meat options, a similar number of appetizers/small plates/entrees, a little something for everyone.

This is apparently not true.

The appetizers were all meat based, so we skipped that right off. They also offered a "selection" of cheeses--4 whole ones, 1 of which was sold out. We ordered the remaining 3: a rubbery cheddar, a goat cheese with an odd after taste, and a manchego that was pretty standard, as far as manchegos go.

It's supposed to be a tapas restaurant. The menu has a grand total of about 5 small plates, which is really quite a small offering for tapas. We ordered the one we could eat, something with shrimp, and while we got a large portion, it featured the most bizarre combination of flavors I've ever seen in a single dish. In an effort to be unique and innovative, the chef seemed to have thrown together the most bizarre collection of foods he could think of, and the result was a disaster.

(Technically there was a second dish we could eat, but it was some kind of squid abomination I'm really glad we didn't try.)

Overall, I felt like the restaurant was just trying too hard. And failing.

The fries were pretty good, though.


And that's it! Rhinebeck is over for another year.

Nothing to do but wait for MD Sheep and Wool in May.

On Rhinebeck: Part the First

Finally!

Work was supremely awful this week. I was at the office for 10+ hours every day--and one day I was there for 14 hours.

And of course, I had to get through the whole thing without any booze for recovery purposes, which was probably the most challenging part.

But, finally, the experts are gone and things are back to normal.

You know, until the hurricane gets here.

But let's pretend that's not happening, and just get into my review of RHINEBECK!

In this post, I'll tell you about the festival itself, and next time, I'll yap about related things, like restaurants and hotel.

First, here's what it looked like on our way up:

Hmmm. Not the greatest weather, but the foliage was still quite beautiful. Rather than drive through Baltimore, Philadelpia, and Newark (ie, the insane traffic route), we opted to drive about 10 minutes out of our way and take a more scenic route through central Pennsylvania. We still had some traffic slow downs because of the rain, but made it in about 6 hours.

Fortunately on festival day, the weather cleared up. In fact, it reached into the 70s, which was far too warm for my taste (but since my Rhinebeck sweater ended up too small--a story for another post--it didn't matter too much).

We arrived at the fairgrounds about 10 minutes after the gates opened.

And the lines were already INSANE. 

I managed to squeeze in to check out Cephalopod Yarns, but the stock was already thoroughly picked over, and the line reached back to New York City. Miss Babs, Jennie the Potter, Socks that Rock . . . they were all the same. And frankly, I refuse to pay for the privilege of standing in line for hours to buy the same yarn I could buy over the Internet (not that the Peruanito lets me stand for long periods of time these days anyway).

So, this ended up being my entire haul:

Yep. One skein of yarn, one braid of fiber.

To be honest, it was a little disappointing. I'm sure the vendors love it, of course, but as a shopper, I was just frustrated. 

So most of my time was spent looking at animals and people watching.

I stopped by the Ravelry meetup and found a few friends to say hi to (and noted a few celebrity sightings: Ysolda, Stephen West, Casey and Jess, Mary Heather), then it was off to lunch. Which was, again, INSANE. While I attempted to take up as much space on a bench as possible so we would have a place to sit, CP stood in line for 30 minutes to bring me the world's grossest burrito, basically a cold flour tortilla wrapped around a can of Old El Paso refried beans. For $8. Yum. 

Then, it was time to dash off again to my spinning class. I was tempted to skip it so I would have time to shop, since I remember last year the crowds thinned out by the afternoon, but I made the mature decision to go, and was glad I did. While most of the other spinners had more experience, I didn't feel totally out of place, and I learned quite a bit. I even feel ready to ply yarn now, and my spinning is coming out at least a bit more even. Plus, Abby Franquemont is a hoot--I love any class that starts out with an explanation of the difference between Latin Time and Gringo Time, something I deal with quite a bit.

When my class ended, I wandered back outside to find that the weather had cooled and the wind had picked up, so it was feeling quite fallish. Also, CP met me with a bag of cider donuts! It was nearly closing time, so it was too late to do any more shopping, but CP had another surprise for me--he didn't feel confident enough to buy yarn, but chatted with some vendors and picked up a lazy kate for me! Isn't he great?

So, another Rhinebeck had come to an end. It wasn't, I must say, as fun and exciting as my first Rhinebeck, but it was definitely an experience.

On multitasking

This is going to be a combo post of sorts, as I want to touch on a few points before we leave for Rhinebeck in the morning.

RHINEBECK IN THE MORNING!

First, I don't want you to miss your weekly Dory cuteness, so here she is:

Yes, she's laying in a cardboard box from Amazon.com. She lays there a lot. More than her bed. I tried to throw it out and CP nearly had a heart attack. He spoils her more than I do, which does not bode well for my "have-children-who-aren't-spoiled-brats" plan.

Also, here's Nelly nuzzling her toy, just for the heck of it:

Secondly, progress has been made on the Rocky Coast cardigan, I'm quite excited:

I finished the body, then knit the first sleeve. Then I couldn't stomach working on giant DPNs anymore, so I did the neckband. And now I'm back to the second sleeve. I got a bit done in the car this morning, before I dropped a DPN under my seat and couldn't find it for 30 minutes. Then I got even a little bit more done, but I'd say I've got another 13" to go.

Which brings me to the next point: RHINEBECK! I'd love to have this sweater ready to wear Saturday. I could easily finish the sleeve during the 6 hour drive to upstate NY, but then I'd have to block the sweater at the hotel, probably on the floor (eww), and hope it dries really quickly. So that's plan B. Plan A is to miraculously finish it tonight. Wish me luck!

I'm all signed up for a spindle spinning class with Abby Franquemont on Saturday afternoon. The only problem is, I haven't touched my spindle in months:

And I am really just a beginning spinner anyway. I hope I won't embarrass myself too much.

If you're at Rhinebeck on Saturday, look for me and say hi! I'll have a very tall Peruvian in tow, a wee baby bump and my yellow-and-black Hufflepuff bag.