Our forest is located just outside of Cooperstown – known for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Then, about 30 minutes south is a slightly larger city, Oneanta. On the weekends, we typically spend time getting acquainted with the offerings of what each of these towns has to offer along with exploring neighboring communities.
Oneanta is a college town that has two shopping areas – a quaint mainstreet and the ‘strip mall’ vibe with lots of chain store and restaurant options, it’s a nice mix of the stuff we like and need! Some of our favs are there like Wendy’s and Starbucks – a couple of grocery stores and a Costco type store called BJ’s. We also bought an Unlimited membership to the local car wash to try and take care of our car in spite of the salted winter roads. It is probably double the length of car washes in Seattle and definitely a party with all the lights! We have already frequented the Home Depot and anticipate many many more trips as our DIY projects get underway. Fortunately we have a True Value closer to the house for the real DIY emergencies.
There are many breweries and cideries in the area to explore. As many things are closed for the winter season – we happen to visit the nearby Fly Creek Cider Mill on their last day. For 167 years they have been growing apples and pressing cider with an old fashioned turbine water wheel. They have a huge market full of jams, jellies, sauces and more! As we meandered through – we soon came to a room full of apples. While we were picking a few to take home, the owner came by and posted a note that said all apples were free! The best part was the delightful jingle that was playing, I just couldn’t help but giggle. They’ll be open again for business in May and we can’t wait to visit again!
Our favorite local coffee shop/eatery so far is called Social Eats and that is the best late we have found so far outside of Seattle. Turns out, we are coffee snobs after all – haha. We’ve also enjoyed the Autumn Cafe and are looking forward to revisiting another favorite, the Yellow Deli. There are more places to try out and perhaps I will have to do a series reviewing the local eateries!
Both of us are suckers for a good antique store or flea market and have had our first visit to Marketplace on Chestnut – 3 floors of meticulously organized treasures. We are more lookers than buyers when it comes to antique stores so the only thing we took home was a Bon Jovi vinyl since the stool Chris wanted desperately wasn’t for sale.
Chris spends lots of time scouring Facebook Marketplace which is often what leads us to discovering new fun places to enjoy. One of our recent outings led us to the perfect TV stand for our living room and Saratoga Springs – located a bit North of the capital city of Albany.
Immediately we loved the area – nice houses and scenery along with a downtown main street that had plenty of shops and restaurants. We gave the local tapas restaurant a try and that ended up being slightly disappointing – we are also a bit picky when it comes to restaurants admittedly. After walking around and exploring a few shops, we grabbed coffee at Walt Cafe.
On our way home we stopped in Albany for a few things we don’t have closer to home. Got some essentials at Target, we hit up LL Bean and found a couple of things on sale and our last stop was Trader Joe’s for some treats we haven’t had since our move from Seattle.
Next on our list of places to see is Utica. We drove through on our way into town initially and have since learned it’s got great food options too. We’ll report back what we discover!
