My Suburban Escapes

There are more things to do
than are dreamt of
in your own philosophy.

Hamlet
by William Shakespeare

Westchester County covers approximately 450 square miles bordered to the west by the Hudson River, to the east by the Long Island Sound, to the south by New York City and to the north by Putnam County and Connecticut. It has an enormous range of habitat and is as rich in history and culture as an alluvial plain.  Westchester is the doughnut hole, surrounded by a ring of possibility:  the birthplace of the Appalachian Trail, remnants of the American Revolution, the second largest New York state park and the biggest city in the country. You can’t just enter these in your GPS – you gotta get out there and explore.   Begin by getting maps of Westchester and neighboring counties, and charts of the Hudson River and the Long Island Sound.  Buy books, pick up brochures, cut out newspaper and magazine articles and download park trails. Get lost and get found. Repeat.  Learn the area and its stories and share the information with your kids. Teach them through example to get their noses out of their belly buttons and phones, to be interested in their surroundings and to know where they are in the big picture… to connect the dots. Encourage them to do more of what makes them forget to look at their phones.

With this book in hand and a solid backup plan, you just begin: pick one. Your first adventure will lead to another, and another, then the picture begins to come into focus. You can do most anything within a 60-mile radius of Westchester County: hike, bike, kayak, boat, climb, swim, hunt, fish, ride horses, explore gardens and tour old manor homes.  And it’s hard to get lost.  There are natural borders on all sides hemming you in. In this book I offer you my personal collection of mini adventures – a menu of sorts with appetizers, main courses and brandy with a cigar.   It’s tough to break free of your routine, but you’ll get the hang of it.  You now have some plans of action right at your fingertips to regularly shake up your own world a little bit, at your own pace and within your own comfort zone. There’s nothing like removing yourself from the daily grind to make you appreciate it more upon your return.  How can you miss it if you don’t leave it?