Chautau-what?

I have had an actual reader request for more information about Chautauqua, and I don't feel like getting out of my pajamas just yet, so I will oblige.

The Chautauqua Institution is quite nice, even during a somewhat damp weekend in early May. I stayed in this fancy old hotel, the Athenaeum. It was quite a hike to my room, but I had a great view of the lake.

I walked around a bit to get to some of the different sessions at the conference I was attending, so I got to see some of the grounds. My mom wandered around a lot, looking at the houses and gardens. Since the season doesn't officially start for about another six weeks, there were a lot of workmen fixing up people's houses and yards.

There's not a lot else to do up there besides enjoy nature and analyze the architecture, though. Oh, wait: There are a ton of wineries in the area, so you can follow the Lake Erie Wine Trail and stock your cellar. I'm not a wine fan, though, and I'm not much for hikes in the woods, either, even if the trails have been created along old railroad beds.

We did go to the Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown, and that was fun. We also ended up in Westfield at some point on Saturday, but didn't linger long because I was ready to head home. I picked up some goat's milk fudge at Webb's Candies before we left — yum!

I guess I have to suck it up and get ready for work. It's just me and the office manager again today — everybody else is on vacation (my cohorts in prepress) or has mysteriously disappeared (the nuns). I was busy doing some actual work yesterday, but today I might have time to follow up with some people I chatted with at the conference.

5 comments:

  1. Nice to have met you in person in Chautauqua. Hopefully you didn't hit any speedtraps coming or going.

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  2. It was nice to meet the whole crew (or most of it) from the peanut gallery on Order from Chaos. (I didn't really recap the whole conference because I didn't think my friend Steve was interested in that part of my trip to Chautauqua — he's considering it as a possible camping/fishing destination later this summer.)

    Anyhow . . . I didn't get caught by any cops. My biggest difficulty was figuring out the right way to go on the highway. I was in the middle of a . .. let's say discussion with my mom (I don't remember anymore what it was about) when we got to the expressway entrance, and I inadvertently got on 86 East instead of 86 West. Doh! One illegal U-turn later, and I was headed back to Ohio. Whew!

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  3. And provided I get my act together, you will even have photo evidence to show "Steve."

    So Steve is your academic advisor for your library / archives degree, which you are certain to pursue now that you have seen the wonderful side of archives?!

    It was great to meet you in person and I hope that you had a good time and learned a few things from us.

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  4. Uhm, Steve is a guy I know from the OU alumni association. He sent me a note on Facebook the other day since I mentioned Chautauqua in my status update last week.

    I did get some tips last weekend on grad programs for archival studies (or whatever) . . . I might do some Googling when things are slow at the office later.

    And I already had a Papa John's post in the queue, ready to robo-post on Wednesday a.m. I love this scheduled posting feature!

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