Technically today is not a day at the Mohonk Mountain House, which is what this 3-day series of posts is predominantly going to be about. But it is the start of the weekend, and that will turn into a long weekend, which will soon be our home for a solid 2 days.
We never did go on that honeymoon we talked about. On that note, and really nothing to do with this specific entry, the weekend will serve as that, sort of our de facto honeymoon that we never took. Getting married a second time later in life tends to preclude one from going away for 2 weeks, especially when you have 3 kids. But that’s neither here nor there.
Tonight, Saturday night, was our first step in the weekend, which we spent at the MPAC, a place we have come to enjoy on & off over the past few years. I don’t know how many times we’ve been here, I would imagine a dozen at least, but they are all enjoyable in some way. Being less than 30 minutes from the house, it’s an easy escape when we have some free time and a good show lines up.
My original (hopeful) plan on the day was to do a day trip and ski Belleayre. But circumstances dictated otherwise, and thus we were left with a free day. In the morning, D found this show was playing, and we decided it was worth a shot. The hectic & uncertain weekend had turned into a nothing Saturday, which we then turned into a something Saturday.
MPAC show link can be found here. Org-specific notes on the show can be found here. Having seen the show, I’m not so sure about this Edison-Tesla thing, but whatever. I’ll give it a pass this time around.
In the end, it’s something to do on a Saturday night. I’m not going to say you should rush out and see the show, but I’ll also say that if it seems interesting to you, go for it. It splits that difference between “ok” and “very good” which I would categorize as “decent” I suppose. If we hadn’t gone, we likely would have stayed home and watched Schitt’s Creek, or some such. Don’t get me wrong, Schitt’s Creek is awesome. But we can watch that whenever we want.
The show was touted as a sort of mix between Stomp and the Blue Man Group, both of which I enjoyed. So for us, it was intriguing enough to see if the show would come close to that mark. Some highlights of the show included making music with garbage cans, a water & flippers routine, a table skit where they use their hands and the table to make some really solid sounds, a pan & fake ball skit, one dude beatboxing, a heart prop that mixed together some really good stuff, and various other things. In all they probably did 12-15 different mini performances. Some of the stuff was good, some of it was ok, and none of it was a total miss. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was the seemingly random impromptu & interpretive dance stuff they did. I have no idea where that fit in, nor what the rhyme or reason was on any of it.
I tried to find some reviews online but there is literally nothing at all. I guess in general the show is well-received, but it’s not quite Stomp and it’s not really in the same realm as Blue Man Group. It’s good, not great. And nothing is bad. So it’s kind of like any review is going to say, “Um…yeah it was good,” then lend nothing to support that. So yeah, it was good.
I would call this more Stomp-inspired than Blue Man Group. In all not as good as Stomp but it does a reasonable job. I was entertained, as was D. I guess you could argue that it should have been a bit longer, as the performance was only 1:15 real time. It’s pretty high energy so I get why it’s short. Since we had to get up early the next day, no complaints from me on this note.
The original plan for tomorrow was to host our first race of the year, the 1st in the Short Track series. But part of the hectic & uncertain weekend I talked about earlier was the fact that we got snow overnight and this put the brakes on moving forward with that. So instead of waking up and hosting a race, the Endless Suck of March will mean we get to enjoy Mohonk to the fullest. Silver lining rule in effect.
Back to Mohonk. Why we are going? Well, for our wedding, we got a gift certificate to use up there. We put some pieces together, and the best way for us to maximize both our time and get the most out of the experience was to get a Sunday overnight. Weekend costs are insane, to say the least. With that plan set, we spent a little time trying to come up with a rough agenda for the trip. As I sit here editing this post, I know how it went in reality. But I will put it here as seen from the night before driving up.
The rough plan for the next 2 days is as such:
– Arrive by 10:00 am, while check-in is not until 4:00 you can get there and spend the day
– Take the house tour at 11:15 am
– Find some time for lunch
– Rent XC skis sometime in the afternoon
– Check-in by 4:00
– Perhaps go skating if time permits
– Dinner is set for 6:30 pm
– The nightly show at 9:00 pm
– Wake up on Monday at some time, really whatever
– Breakfast opens at 8:00 am
– Yoga at 9:00 am or 11:00 am
– Lunch is 12:00-1:30 pm
– Check out of your room by 1:00 pm, but you can stay all day
– Another yoga option is at 3:30 pm
So there you go, the 0th day of the 3-day weekend, 2-day Mohonk honeymoon wraps up. Good day to start the weekend. Let’s see how this all plays out in the end. We’re both excited and looking forward to this journey!
Traveling Normandy 