Coxsackie - where in the world?

View from the Escarpment Trail in Catskill Park.

Pronounced cook-SOCK-ee, Coxsackie is a lovely little town on the western bank of the Hudson River, about 30-40 minutes south of Albany (in the “mid-Hudson” area). Why would we stop there, you ask - it was simply on the way to our next stop in New Hampshire, we found a nice airbnb right near the river, and there was nearby hiking/live music in abundance. It was also expected to be WAY cooler and less humid than DC. We are still traumatized (I know I said I wouldn’t mention it again, but….trauma!).

The airbnb was this quirky but comfortable place with views of the Hudson from the porch and several of the front facing windows. Quite beautiful. We were a bit mystified, however, by some of the design choices, until Craig looked the place up on Zillow - it turns out it was built in 1800 (!). Ok, that explained a lot. There were some weird corners, low ceilings and the part that confounded me the most - the stairway to the second floor. I don’t even know how to explain it clearly - you walk up the stairway to the second floor and when you reach the “top” and the landing, you still have to step up an ADDITIONAL step to get to the master bedroom or a DIFFERENT additional step to go to the hallway with the other rooms or ANOTHER different additional step to go into one of the bathrooms. That bathroom was also visible from the front door. See the photos. I want to say again - we liked this place a lot, it just had some interesting…quirks. Oh, and the hallway/other rooms on the top floor definitely were not level and tilted “down” from the center of the house. Luckily, the master bedroom was more level.

We were adopted by one of the neighborhood cats, who liked to lounge on the patio/backyard furniture, and we saw lots of other wildlife (I didn’t manage to get good photos, but there were deer, wild turkeys, and a variety of other small woodland creatures).

View from the porch.

View from inside the front door.

View out the dining room window.

View from one of the bedrooms.

Crazy stairs.

View up the stairs from the foyer - a lil weird you can see the toilet paper.

The cat thought the place was hers…but very friendly.

Wild turkey! We also saw a deer and other small animals.

One of our favorite adventures in the area was our day at the races - we went to Saratoga Racetrack, just north of Albany. We arrived 2 hours before the first race and it was PACKED on a WEDNESDAY. Lots of racing history at this track and it was a lot of fun to watch the horses. I also really enjoyed the horses’ names - for example, I bet on Pineapple Man, who came in second in his race - it was fun to cheer for him loudly. There was also “From Another Mother” (did not bet on him), “Unlimited Potential” (came in third, but won me some money on a win/place/show bet) and “Rocket Robin” (also won me money by coming in second). We won enough to keep betting and leave with half our money 😎 🏇🏻.

Had some great seats.

Very pretty view from them.

Should not need an explanation…

You could also stand right at the railing - we did that later.

View of a gate start in the innermost track.

The horses were so pretty.

View from the track - not quite as thundery as I expected.

Lots of fun food there too.

For a relatively small area/population center, there was a lot of live music as part of multiple local “summer series.” There were Friday evening concerts by the Hudson in Athens, NY and Sunday late afternoon concerts near us in the Coxsackie Riverfront park. For the Athens events, several people “parked” their boats just off the event area and listened from there - which seemed JUST the best way to enjoy the festivities.

For more photos on the rest of our adventures in Coxsackie, check out the gallery - it includes the pedestrian bridge over the Hudson, pick your own (produce) adventure, hiking, etc.