I met Lyra in Rutland, and we took her car to Albany. We drove on Route 4 West through a few towns, crossing into New York from Fair Haven into Hampton, then hitting Whitehall and Fort Ann as we skirted the southern edge of Adirondack State Park. These towns looked much like rural Vermont with high IRPs and many more abandoned houses than in Vermont. Then we hopped on Interstate 89 South through Glens Falls, Malta, Ballston Spa, Latham, and eventually to Colonie, location of our hotel. Urban sprawl characterizes much of the Albany area, whether it’s endless strip malls lining five-lane local routes or unvarying neighborhoods with quaint names [Retention Pond Estates, Scrawny Tree Manor, Wood Meadow Heights Lane] and no nearby town center. I found myself wondering how anyone escapes the strip malls or endless neighborhoods.

We arrived in the middle of the afternoon and did not want to stay in the hotel room. Instead we went to the Colonie Center, a megamall right across the street from the Travelodge. We wandered around Barnes and Noble. Because I hadn’t brought my phone, I pestered Lyra to take pictures of books that looked interesting so I could find them at a library and read them. I found a World’s Smallest Boggle board game, which Lyra said was too large for my 1:6 scale dolls, but which I bought anyway.

We ventured into the mall to Five Below, a store where prices are supposedly five dollars and below. Between the cheap cosmetics, the kawaii stationery, pends, and erasers, the charms for cell phones and backpacks, the extensive candy aisles, and the wide selection of blind box toys, the store clearly caters to kids between the ages of five and fifteen who want things that they consider cool, cute, and affordable. I think of it as analogous to the older staple of malls, Claire’s, although Claire’s focused more on jewelry and offered ear piercing. Nata introduced me to Five Below a few years ago when I visited her, and I like poking around there for fashion doll clothes or miniatures [often from blind boxes] suitable for 1:6 scale. Lyra did not know the glories of Five Below [because there are none in Vermont], so I introduced her. I got some Rainbow Brite branded fashion doll clothes for the dorklets.

For dinner, we went to Tanpopo Ramen in Albany. It was in a previously industrial section of the city with red-brick factories converted into loft apartments and restaurants in between boarded-up buildings not yet rehabilitated. With rust on its corrugated iron and old signs still hanging from its walls, this section of Albany reminded me of downtown Plattsburgh in which attempts at urban renewal coexist with urban decay. 

We met Lyra’s cousin and ate salty, delicious ramen. I chose chicken for the protein and slurped it up with such gusto that it slopped on the front of my shirt. After driving through a spitting snow squall on our way into the city and shivering in our gelid, unwelcoming hotel room, we warmed up with our bowls of hot soup. The sake dilated our capillaries and gave us a superficial sense of warmth, but the ramen really made me feel warm from the inside out.

The next morning, we went to a diner in Latham. Though it was called 76 Diner and adorned out front with a picture of Colonial soldiers, it was founded in 1973, a fact that entertained me. This diner, though not an adapted diner car, nevertheless featured both a counter and booth seating. A plethora of mirrors framed in metallic finish reflected the glorious gardens of fake flowers in each window and along the top of the dividing wall separating booths from walkway. All booths had hanging lamps with stained glass shades mostly in golden brown with a floral pattern. The clank of silverware and clatter of dishes seemed to be the auditory equivalent of the bright flashes from mirrors and lampshades. It was so unironically old-fashioned and beautiful, in an over-the-top, joyful way, that I took a few pictures to immortalize a sense of its aesthetic obstreperousness.

Plus the food was good! Lyra and I both chose omelets containing lox, white onions, and cream cheese. The cream cheese melted enough to add moisture to the omelet coating, and the onions provided crunch, while the lox, of course, contributed some wonderful saltiness. We also had hash browns [fried potatoes] and toast, which for some reason always tastes very insubstantial at diners.

I discarded most thoughts of photostories when I arrived at the inhospitable hotel. I did, however, shoot some pictures of Ebru at the Latham 76 Diner keeping her teddy bear warm by wrapping it in her coat and pouring a lifesize packet of sugar into her doll-size coffee cup. This represented my most elaborate photostory effort of the trip.