A Day at the Races

It's time for our annual August vacation trip -- this time to upstate New York (which, to the uninitiated means "anywhere north of New York City").

Last night and tonight we are staying on Mansion Row in Albany, in a place on the historic site index, built in the late 19th century for a woman who became a famous suffragete.  And here's the view from the room -- the capitol and east beyond to the mountains, and Massachusetts (right?)

Probably the highlight of dinner, at the Ginger Man (named, it said, after the Donleavy novel), was this -- for those of you too old or too young, this is fondue!

It was fun.  And the other food was good, too.

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We started the day with breakfast. We hit a place a short walk from the hotel. Nothing special.

Then we went to "the Spa" to the races.   The big concession to MY addiction (hint: tomorrow night we are actually staying in the guest house of a winery).

Despite warnings all week about the day's weather, it started beautifully!  The race track at Saratoga is famous for its grove of trees, where people picnic and watch the races on TV.  And there are lots of vendors.

To my shock, Mrs H bought a hat!!!! I've been known to buy hats to commemorate trips, but here she is, stopping at the vendor, looking at the tag and not passing out, then actually trying on a straw hat in the "Slavin style."  She also kept singing, which made me wonder...

We had good seats in the grandstand (photo here) and spent most of the day pissing away money -- unable to sustain even a show parley (where you pick a horse to show in the race and bet the winnings on the next race to do the same -- it can add up if you can pick horses to show).

But near the end of the day it darkened, then rain.  Then, with all the customers under the stands (there were about 30,000) it lightninged!  NBD, but the crowd oooh-ed and aaaah-ed --I told K it was like a fireworks display.

After a 25 minute delay, they ran the big race, the fourstardave (I guess it's a NY sports bar?), on soft turf.  I ended the day hitting the Grand Slam (Josh will know), which paid $30 for my $1 bet.  Salved a pretty bad day.

Then back to Albany (about 40 miles) for Italian for dinner.  It was not clear who chose the Italian (she called!) -- the papardelle bolognesse was excellent.  Mio Posto.  I guess there's one in Saratoga, too.

Day one down...later I'll write up day 2.