As we were driving our daughter to camp in upstate New York yesterday, James asked "is there a Bridgewater, New York?" I thought probably there was, so I checked the atlas, and there it was, due south of the camp. We decided to take a different route home than usual and stop in our town's New York "xará" (xará is a Portuguese word meaning one who has the same name).
The Village of Bridgewater is located at the junction of routes 8 and 20, just south of Utica. It is quite a small town with under 600 residents. Nevertheless the town has a library (with hours comparable to our own), a municpal building, a park, and a highway department.
Blogger and librarian, Pam, poses in front of the Bridgewater (NY) Free Library
As we took in the driving tour, which took about 3 minutes, we noticed the Bridgewater School. No longer a school, it now houses an antique store, indoor skateboard park, and the cleverly named Cafe'Teria - all run by Ron and Linda Inger. We had a wonderful experience meeting Ron, who was happy to show us around the school, chat, and make his signature iced espresso drink - his secret is to put half the ice directly in the cup, and the other half into the blender.
Cafe'Teria logo
Indoor Skateboard park in what had once been the gymnasium/auditorium. Ron points out that while the Bridgewater, New Jersey skateboard park allows bikes, his does not!
Interior shot of Cafe'Teria
Blogger James (aka Dr. Java) poses with his new coffee friend, Ron.
We took Ron up on his suggestion to eat at Dominick's Italian Bistro, right next to the old Bridgewater, New York train station. Our waitress, Pam (my xará!) was attentive and friendly, and the food was quite flavorful. James had chicken lightly breaded with a delightful mushroom sauce over fettuccini, and Pam had the baked lasagna. Normally we do not get appetizers, unless jalapeño poppers are offered, in this case they were, so we had plenty of leftovers of our main course to enjoy after we returned home.
Old Train Depot -- with a milk-crate basketball court
Good Unitarian Universalists that we are, we stopped for a photo op at the Bridgewater Universalist Cemetery, the print at the bottom of the sign reads "Site of the Universalist Church." Little did we know it was the 200th attainment day of famous Universalist P.T. Barnum.
On leaving Bridgewater, we decided to follow U.S. 20, a delightful transect which we describe in more detail on our Celebrating the States blog.
I like route 20... it was the main turnpike that settlers went west on in the 1700s - 1800s and the little towns are so fun to stop in for a driving break... several ice cream shops make for fun eating and snacking, but I also take a picnic basket of goodies along as well, with fresh water to drink... My mom's side of the Bartlett family have lived around Bridgewater and Paris for 200 years, but few remain and many have gone south and west from there.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to going exploring on 20 this year after so much staying home over the past two years. I retired when covid came in and hope we are going to see much less of it this year... Loren Fay, Albany, NY.
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