So now we take a turn to the unexpected. One of our 9 friends just tested positive for COVID. We all had post-vacation plans. An extended vacation on Cape Cod with friends, a visit with relatives in Syracuse, a trip to Paris for a week, a drive back to northern Michigan and a flight to South Carolina. We are driving 400 miles to DC today and had a busy week coming up. We had an important Haberman Institute event tomorrow, meetings scattered throughout the week, and Friday night is Rosh Hashonah. Not only were we planning for services, but were scheduled to go to our daughter’s house Friday night and have guests to our house Saturday and Sunday. None of that will happen.

CDC guidelines say that, if you are exposed (and boy have we been), you should mask and lay low for 10 days. Ten days from today is a week from Tuesday. We hope we don’t get sick, of course, but certainly don’t want to expose family and friends.

On a better note, the last day in Saratoga Springs was good. We went to Skidmore College, now co-ed, it appears, and to its art museum, where there was an exhibition of mixed media work by a New Mexico artist, Paula Wilson. Some enormous pieces that scared me, made me very uncomfortable. One of my friends said that they were supposed to do that. Then there was an exhibit of hand made snow globes, which you were encouraged to shake, and a large exhibit of Tibetan art, which would I am sure have been terrific if I only understood it.

We also went to the local historical museum, in an 1870 building in the middle of a city park. A terrific collection of Saratoga Springs stuff, with only a little about horses. More about people, from Iroquois to Black to Irish and onward.

But most interesting , perhaps, was the history of the city as an illegal gambling mecca, patronized by the most well known New York financiers, as well as the biggest Italian and Jewish gangsters. The museum’s building is the former Men’s Club (and casino). And, in the “who knew?” department, it was the place that its namesake sandwich was first served, the club sandwich. Potato chips were also first made here And Saratoga water is still bottled here.

We also saw the racetrack and the harness track, and a great many beautiful homes. I may tell you about the Riggi house later. Let’s now just say it’s probably the most luxurious house in Saratoga Springs and it was sold off yesterday at a no-reserve auction.

Lunch at a bakery/sandwich shop, Mrs. London’s, sitting right to her husband’s place, Max London’s. Called London, I guess, because it is so very Parisian.

Finally, we went to Brandtville, an old Black neighborhood that existed prior to the Civil War, and saw the only original house still standing.

Our final, COVID exposed meal tonight was at Old Bryan’s Inn. Unexciting fried chicken for me. And no, we didn’t know about COVID yet. That surprise came when all we have to do is wake up, load the car, throw out the trash, and go.

Today, we hit the road.