There are so many beautiful place in the world. However, the Catskills have always been a place that tugs at my heart. It is the place where my earliest memories of vacation reside. From the time I was little my parents rented a bungalow at a bungalow colony called Mirth in the tiny village of Mountaindale NY. I remember tree covered roads and lakes with turtles and streams with salamanders.
The Amazing Ms. D and I spent a weekend in the Catskills when she was invited as a participating writer at the 2nd annual Festival of Women Writers in the town of
Hobart NY. Hobart is a small hamlet in the north-west corner of the Catskill Mountains. It is the "Book village of the Catskills" with 6 bookstores in a town of around 440 people. The stores range from high end antiquarian and rare books to mass used mass market, and there is a wide range of choices.
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| Blenheim Hill Books |
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| Mysteries and More |
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| The Amazing Ms. D in Mysteries and More |
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| Liberty Rock Books |
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| Around the World with Books and Cooks |
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| William Adams Antiquarian Books |
As I said, Hobart is small, but many of the buildings show the history of the town:
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| This barn is right on Main Street |
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| Supreme Court Chambers? |
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| Where the sidewalk ends |
Hobart lies along the West Branch of the Delaware River, which is a small trickle here.
For those who like to hike through nature this part of the Catskills has a an old rail bed that has been turned into a very nice trail.
The Catskill Scenic Trail stretches from the town of Roxbury to a point about halfway between Hobart and Delhi.
One of the things that I love about the Catskills is that there are wonderful scenes that just appear, seemingly out of nowhere, as you drive from place to place. One my way to Oneonta I has just passed through the town of Davenport Center when I came across a wonderful bend in a river:
Or driving into the town of Stamford I saw this vista:
