Recently in Schenectady Category

Having recently hit a huge sale at the Baby Gap outlet in Manchester, Vermont, Brett & I decided to see if lightening could strike twice. The upside to living in upstate New York is that there are several retail outlets within close proximity to our place. A few months ago, while killing time, Brett stumbled upon a Gap outlet nestled inside a regular mall. We're not sure why it's there, but we're not going to argue...plus it's less than 30 minutes from our house!

In our newly one year+ long embraced adventurous Yankee spirit, Brett and I have decided that any chance we get, we should take the road less traveled. In this case, we did that literally.

We threw our new-to-us bikes in the back of the car and headed down the road a few miles to the city limits of Cohoes (also home to our favorite local falls). There we got on the bike path and started our journey towards neighboring town Niskayuna.

The Mohawk-Hudson Bikeway path runs almost 40 miles near the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers. The beautiful scenery almost made us forget how bad our hineys were hurting from the ride! The trail took us under the Mohawk Bridge and behind some beautiful neighborhoods...views we'd never get to see otherwise.

The Mohawk-Hudson Bikeway links Albany and Schenectady Counties and the trail is just part of the state-wide Canalway Trail that follows the Erie Canal from Buffalo to Albany. Cool thing about the trail: parts run along abandoned rail lines, following the old rail bed!

Brett & I ended up riding about 16 miles on our bikes! It was a great chance to see Upstate New York from a completely different perspective...just another good reason to take the road less traveled!

I got the chance over the weekend to do a little sight seeing in Schenectady over the weekend!

Schenectady County hosted the Summer Night program on State Street and it was a sight to see!

There were tons of street vendors, food carts, informational booths and just plain interesting people there.

Mix all that with some great weather and it was a recipe for fun!

One of the most surprising things I've learned since living in upstate New York is just how many film projects are shot here. We hadn't even unpacked our television from the move when we were hearing all about Angelina Jolie's film, Salt. We didn't catch it in the theaters but on Redbox and had a blast slow-mo-ing the scenes so we could see our new home town in the background!

None of the places that we've lived before seemed to have too many films shot there, but I was lucky enough to do a news story on the set of Walk the Line while they were filming in Arkansas. I actually got to see how movie producers had renovated a roadside hotel where Cash stayed and the tree Cash and his cohorts set fire to in the film.

And that folks is about as close as I've ever been to the silver screen...until now.

While I was out of town over the weekend, Brett went to a movie extra casting call for The Place Beyond the Pines. He and about a million other people in Upstate New York! He was there the whole day! From 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. he waited with a huge group of men for a chance to be a background extra in the upcoming Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling film.

Brett had his picture made and was actually called back to read for the role of news reporter (go figure, right?). He had about five lines the he performed in front of the film's casting agents.

We don't know yet on whether or not he got the role, but word on the street is that the movie is supposed to begin filming in July, so keep your fingers crossed!!