The following is an acccount of a great short vacation which I took with fellow-staff member, Pat Gaines, this month. It was the best thing I've been involved with in ages. Hope you like it!
Pam Weinberg and Pat Gaines at "Will Shortz’s Wonderful World of Words" at Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New York
Last April, I saw a small listing in the Chicago Tribune about a weekend of word play and games at a resort in New Paltz, N.Y. Everything about it sounded like I was meant to go (I love N.Y. state and I love words…) My husband couldn’t make it, but he told me to go ahead. Eventually I talked Pat Gaines into going with me, and we anxiously awaited an interesting weekend at a beautiful resort (with award winning dining included).
We (Pam and Pat) finally started on our whirlwind weekend at 5:30 am (oh my!) on Friday, Nov. 9, 2007. The flight was fine but it didn’t bode well when O’Hare didn’t get our luggage on the plane which we found out about at the Albany Airport (an attractive small really easy-to-deal-with airport). They took our info, and actually did get our luggage to us at the resort by that evening. In any case, we drove from Albany to just outside of New Paltz in the Catskills - a beautiful 2 hr. drive parallel to the west side of the Hudson River - with autumn colors galore. We finally made our way up a long winding road to our hotel and it was just as beautiful and breathtaking as the brochures.
At check-in we each received a folder full of puzzles (3-D Word Hunt, Cartoon Caption Contest, Mashed P’s. . .and other crossword-type games). I worked somewhat diligently on the puzzles to complete them for the drawings while Pat goofed off and basked in the amenities. The hotel/resort alone would have been worth the trip – acres of wooded landscape and trails (they even have a naturalist on staff for guided tours), mountain views, biking, golfing, horseback riding, carriage rides, a pampering spa, swimming pool, skating rink, etc. etc., and all in a very large and charming Victorian mansion with more nooks and crannies than one can imagine! Two things tell you a lot – there is no television or radio in the rooms, and there are so many gazebos throughout, that people can’t even count them, but you don’t even notice that there are a lot of them because the place is so big!
The “theme” weekend, hosted by Wordplay star and N.Y. Times puzzle editor, Will Shortz, was filled with activities and speakers. This was the 26th annual and most of the attendees have been going for years (we were among about 10 newcomers in a total of about 200). Some of the highlights were Bob Mankoff of The New Yorker speaking on “The Art of Writing Cartoon Captions”, a crazy game of “Scrabble Scramble”, an afternoon playing boxed word games with other participants (don't go "ugh" - it was fun!), an incredible treasure hunt all over the massive building which took over an hour and a half for the winning team, tea and book signing with Will Shortz and Bob Mankoff, and the most interesting speaker on Sunday morning, Ira Glass from “This American Life” on NPR speaking on “Storytelling on Radio.”
What a full weekend! It was just great to meet so many literate and interesting “word puzzle” people (most from the New York city area or the East) all in a most sublime setting. (Oh, yes, to make it even more beautiful, it snowed the first night and kids were out making snowmen the next morning – even Disney couldn’t manufacture that!). So – after funny and interesting speakers, many good meals, meeting lots of nice people, doing fun puzzles and visiting this great place – we got back in our car and drove up to Albany for the plane home, full of memories of a unique weekend near the Catskills and thoughts of returning next year.
BTW, their website is www.Mohonk.com and they host “theme” weekends throughout the year. Check it out – I’m pretty sure Sophie Manta will be there for the “Everything Chocolate” weekend in February!
Pam Weinberg/Pat Gaines
November, 2007
(This might be published in a slightly edited format for the SPL newsletter The Grapevine for December, 2007. Sorry about the duplication.)
Pam Weinberg and Pat Gaines at "Will Shortz’s Wonderful World of Words" at Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New York
Last April, I saw a small listing in the Chicago Tribune about a weekend of word play and games at a resort in New Paltz, N.Y. Everything about it sounded like I was meant to go (I love N.Y. state and I love words…) My husband couldn’t make it, but he told me to go ahead. Eventually I talked Pat Gaines into going with me, and we anxiously awaited an interesting weekend at a beautiful resort (with award winning dining included).
We (Pam and Pat) finally started on our whirlwind weekend at 5:30 am (oh my!) on Friday, Nov. 9, 2007. The flight was fine but it didn’t bode well when O’Hare didn’t get our luggage on the plane which we found out about at the Albany Airport (an attractive small really easy-to-deal-with airport). They took our info, and actually did get our luggage to us at the resort by that evening. In any case, we drove from Albany to just outside of New Paltz in the Catskills - a beautiful 2 hr. drive parallel to the west side of the Hudson River - with autumn colors galore. We finally made our way up a long winding road to our hotel and it was just as beautiful and breathtaking as the brochures.
At check-in we each received a folder full of puzzles (3-D Word Hunt, Cartoon Caption Contest, Mashed P’s. . .and other crossword-type games). I worked somewhat diligently on the puzzles to complete them for the drawings while Pat goofed off and basked in the amenities. The hotel/resort alone would have been worth the trip – acres of wooded landscape and trails (they even have a naturalist on staff for guided tours), mountain views, biking, golfing, horseback riding, carriage rides, a pampering spa, swimming pool, skating rink, etc. etc., and all in a very large and charming Victorian mansion with more nooks and crannies than one can imagine! Two things tell you a lot – there is no television or radio in the rooms, and there are so many gazebos throughout, that people can’t even count them, but you don’t even notice that there are a lot of them because the place is so big!
The “theme” weekend, hosted by Wordplay star and N.Y. Times puzzle editor, Will Shortz, was filled with activities and speakers. This was the 26th annual and most of the attendees have been going for years (we were among about 10 newcomers in a total of about 200). Some of the highlights were Bob Mankoff of The New Yorker speaking on “The Art of Writing Cartoon Captions”, a crazy game of “Scrabble Scramble”, an afternoon playing boxed word games with other participants (don't go "ugh" - it was fun!), an incredible treasure hunt all over the massive building which took over an hour and a half for the winning team, tea and book signing with Will Shortz and Bob Mankoff, and the most interesting speaker on Sunday morning, Ira Glass from “This American Life” on NPR speaking on “Storytelling on Radio.”
What a full weekend! It was just great to meet so many literate and interesting “word puzzle” people (most from the New York city area or the East) all in a most sublime setting. (Oh, yes, to make it even more beautiful, it snowed the first night and kids were out making snowmen the next morning – even Disney couldn’t manufacture that!). So – after funny and interesting speakers, many good meals, meeting lots of nice people, doing fun puzzles and visiting this great place – we got back in our car and drove up to Albany for the plane home, full of memories of a unique weekend near the Catskills and thoughts of returning next year.
BTW, their website is www.Mohonk.com and they host “theme” weekends throughout the year. Check it out – I’m pretty sure Sophie Manta will be there for the “Everything Chocolate” weekend in February!
Pam Weinberg/Pat Gaines
November, 2007
(This might be published in a slightly edited format for the SPL newsletter The Grapevine for December, 2007. Sorry about the duplication.)
2 comments:
Sounds like a lot of fun! When I watched Wordplay, I thought maybe we could have a crossword puzzle tourney at the library. Wouldn't that be fun!
Sounds like you and Pat had a blast! I will cop to something of a crossword obsession myself...
Post a Comment