Troy, New York

Next stop on our journey was Troy, New York. we got a cheap flight from Detroit to Albany (via DC... changing my tally to 7 airports, 5 flights, and 2 train stations inside of 5 days!) we stayed with Andrew and Vickie at their famous house on 9th street in Troy. The house was large and exciting, as promised. It was totally a fixer-upper and Andrew and Vickie have been lovingly renovating it over the past year.

I have much nostalgia for the days when Andrew was my roommate in Brooklyn so it was great to be back in AndrewSpace, a mental and physical place filled with lots of bike parts and lots of action and fun and colors and ideas and good food. For instance, when we arrived, Andrew was putting the finishing touches on a back-yard shed which he had conceived and constructed entirely from scrap wood in the course of two days! without measuring anything. I helped out painting its doors bright red.

Then we made a bonfire in the fire-pit and roasted some vegetables and a lot of people came over for dinner in the Yarden, it was lots of fun!

We also went to visit The Sanctuary for Independent Media, an amazing media venue inside of an old church, a beautiful and inspiring space. And we met Andrew's friend Branda and her daughter Masha and their tiny amazing dog Rosefang and went out for a canoe trip on the Hudson River and Erie Canal and took a bike ride in the rain.
While in troy, we also ran into Jason Steven Murphy, a friend from high school who happens to be getting married this weekend! (congratulations!), and visited Cat Mazza and Jim Finn, who we'd met in Buenos Aires when Jim had a retrospective of his film work showing at the BAFICI Film Festival. Cat showed us her amazing knitting studio, filled with knitting projects by herself and other artists, a collection of knitting patterns and literature and a Brother bulky knitting machine, among other interesting objects. Cat told us about one of her current projects, Stitch for Senate, and gave us each a ball of yarn and a set of needles to participate in the project by knitting our very own helmet-liner for a US senator.
Also, on our second day in Troy, fellow former 708 Greene roommateAngie appeared just in time for the cook-out! It was just like old times. Angie is amazing.
It was sad to say good-bye to everyone and everything in Troy, but we had to head to Maine on Friday morning. We'd planned to take the greyhound bus but we were incredibly fortunate to get a ride to Boston with Cat and Jim, and another ride from Boston to Maine with Andrew and Vickie's roommate Sarah and her friend Brendan. Sarah is a musician and author who was really nice and interesting and great company for the ride. We stopped in Ipswitch for fried clams along the way.