I ended up going out to my parents house early to take a shower, after the sewer backed up in my apartment. I had some time until Sunday dinner, so I decided to go out for a drive, and take some of the backroads, I hadn’t really been over much since back when I lived out in Westerlo and used to explore them in my pickup truck or mountain bike.

Much has remained the same, though there are some new houses and others have changed. The roads still are twisty but smooth, so it’s fun to wind the pickup truck up on this wonderful back roads that bring back memories of my childhood. Most of the marginal, small dairies that were on the way out back then, are now gone. Fewer trailers, more big house. The trash burning barrels are all gone, thanks to DEC regulations.

I really didn’t drive all that far, compared to my younger years when gas was cheap and the backroads always seemed to offer the thrill of finding some scenic vista that is all but unknown to the few people who traverse them. Mostly ended up in the hills of South Westerlo, then into Greenville past my old High School to Greenville Town Park. Didn’t really stop at the old school, except to notice how it’s been expanded, and most certainly is a fort in fear of terror.

Walked around the George Vanderbilt Greenville Town Park for something like 90 minutes, hiking the big loop around the park, through the rolling  farm fields with the Catskill Mountains high in the background. In more recent years I’ve hiked many of those peaks and know them well. They left quite an image burned into the back of my head.

I hadn’t been back to the Basic Creek at that park in 10 years, as the last time I was there it was very brief. Not much has changed back there, but it’s still remarkably beautiful, even if I don’t remember every little part of it after the years. After the stroll around the park, I visited Bryants’ Supermarket in Greenville, which is now TOPS. Another changed placed, and even the people and accents seemed so familiar but so far away after all these years.