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On a November day in 2019, my husband Mart and I found ourselves in the Hudson River Valley in New York. An old friend of his lives there with her husband and their black Lab, and after years of seeing photos of their place, we wanted to see the real thing.
So, on a trip up to see our daughter in New York, we planned our visit with our friends for Sunday afternoon. That morning, we met them at their church in NYC, Redeemer Church (another place we’d wanted to go for years). After the worship service and a delicious brunch at a nearby restaurant, we hopped into our friends’ car and took a scenic highway that ran along the Hudson River most of the way to their house.
They live near a historic, small and charming Hudson River Valley village called Tarrytown. From Mart’s interest in history, we knew that Tarrytown played a big role in the Revolutionary War. British Major John Andre, in league with Benedict Arnold, was captured as a spy here, and we saw the historic marker on Church Street that tells more of the story.
At our friends’ house, we could see down to the river in the distance with the mountains on the other side of it. It was quite a view.
A well-known park runs behind their back yard. As we walked along the paths that zig-zagged through the grass, their black lab ran back and forth around us. The bright sunlight and chilly breeze made my eyes water and caused me to reach for my sunglasses. It was a spectacular fall day.
As the afternoon sun began to wane, we drove to the Rockefeller Nature Preserve, which is just minutes away. We walked through the park, enjoying the late-fall color of the leaves and the sight and sound of the water.
Back at their house, our friends built a roaring fire in the living room and offered us generous helpings of apple and pumpkin pie. We sat on comfy green sofas, surrounded by shelves of books, and talked until the light outside disappeared. Finally, it was time to catch our train back to the city. On the way back, I took with me the memory of a day filled with beauty, friends, conversation, books, good food, and a brilliant blue sky—a few of my favorite things.
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