Our cars been in the shop and it’s been a long couple of weeks since coming off of our Christmas break. Last week especially when school started to get scary busy and the weather greeted it with a bitter cold spell. The car went kaput about 30 minutes before street cleaning on Monday. My phone said it was 13 degrees. We debated rushing for a tow knowing that we were going to get a ticket anyway. Eventually we got a tow and a ticket.

We had planned on shooting a movie on Friday for this online project, but had no idea what to shoot. Or where to shoot it. Being indecisive, I commented on the fact that the only reason I wish the car was around was at these moments when we could potentially get out. We ended up with camera and gear in tow, in a rental car, crossing the Bronx a couple hours later. The great Upstate New York awaiting our adventure.

Appropriately, we headed to Cold Spring, driving through Taconic State Park. It was so wonderfully quiet out there. We spent a minute on the edge of this frozen pond.

Cold spring was fun, we went up to the Hudson River where a train was crossing on the other bank, we chased some sea gulls and headed north to Beacon. We had some lunch and I talked to my friends in Troy about coming up to their farm for the night.

We were still a couple of hours to Troy so we took a little detour to Woodstock. It was okay, really silly, actually. I’m glad my parents didn’t go to Woodstock.

The driving up to troy was pretty ugly. It had started to snow and we were in a tiny compact rental. It got bad right as we got to Troy, but there was a good amount of accumulation.

We stayed the night and took a snowy walk the next morning. We brought some carrots and fed the horses and walked up the hill to the barn.

We continued to climb the hill where I got this shot of the whole farm:

We said our ‘goodbyes’ to our friends and headed down towards Great Barrington, Mass on highway 22. It was a beautiful snowy morning drive; we drove slow, soaking in our environment.

Great Barrington was a small little ski town. There are a couple of slopes around there, one was named Butternut (cute). Neither of us had ever heard of it but we saw a group of college kids walking in on our way out with ski passes. We didn’t stay for long. Simply had some lunch and headed towards home.

We took the Taconic State Parkway, stopping at the Taconic Lake. The sandy dudes were the coldest feeling I have ever had in my life. The car said it was 18 degrees but I am willing to be that lake shore was negative 10. We could stand it about long enough to get a panoramic.

The sun went down over the hills like a fire. We were flying in our compact rental at 50 miles an hour down towards Brooklyn. Almost having forgotten the noise and frustration that lead us to take this spontaneous adventure in the first place.

I wanted to document it here because it was spontaneous. I think we should take record of the acts that we stumble upon. We are so good at writing and re-writing our ideas, or manifesto’s on our ideas relationship to whatever, but sometimes we forget that there is a world out there. It’s waiting for our eyes, for our approval. For our tireless memories to draw into larger systems or narratives. For our dreams to paint with. For our loved ones to share. For you, whoever you may be, I hope you’ll be inspired take an adventure reading this.