Today meets yesterday

          Our New Jersey Thanksgiving began with the traditional family gathering for the meal, but on the second day we truly visited the past by checking out grandson #1’s new digs.

          An acquaintance of our daughter and SIL is part owner of a nearby family compound, with a main house, stables, assorted barns and possibly two other houses. EGG #1 (i.e. the oldest grand) and his girlfriend had just rented the old caretaker’s house. Sounds very grand, doesn’t it? Except it’s 250 years old, the original wide openings in front and back now filled in with stone and doors. The two-foot-thick openings were there because at one point they used to drive the wagons in, toss the hay up to the second floor, and drive out again.

          Rustic is the key word here, but the history of the place was still fascinating.

         

           You can see the marks in the hand-hewn beams and the floor boards upstairs are improbably wide.

 

      Still, it’s heated with one woodstove smack in the middle of the downstairs – a true awakening for a 23-year-old who grew up in suburbia. (There are a few weird electric panels here and there, but I shudder at what electric would cost.) 

          We also noted a few rat traps outside as we walked in, but to be fair, they are living on a farm. And a few extra visitors might liven up things for their two house cats.

          Ah, to be young!

          Apparently we weren’t destined to shake off history yet because on the road home that day we pulled off the highway into a small New York town for a late lunch.

Somehow, we miraculously stumbled onto this place, built in 1759. 

There they were again – the whitewashed walls, the massive beams overhead.

 

         Too bad we were on the road.

 It was an Irish-themed gastro pub and while the food was spectacular, we had to set aside the drinks menu, with its amazing beer and long lists of imported Scotch and whisky, which ran to seven pages.