Day 2: Binghamton, NY to Hamilton, NY
Not enough sleep, but on the road by 11:30am. A little after noon Jaime and Brian called and we made plans to hang out. I headed to Schenectady, NY to have lunch/dinner with Brian. We hung out, played a little billiards, and ate some great indian at Karavalli.
I eventually started for Hamilton, NY (to meet Jaime) around 8:30pm (about 2 hours later than I had planned). No definite plans were made, but there was some idea that we’d hang out with his friends from Colgate. Heavy rain made the trip somewhat more exciting that I liked (and marked the second day of travel through rain for me). As I sped down Rt. 91, Jaime called to ask if I would mind diverting, and stopping in Utica, a fellow visiting faculty (named Erin) was stranded in the train station there, and he wanted to meet there to pick her up. I offered to save him the trip to Utica, and just pick her up and drop her off at Colgate.
It odd walking into an empty train station and offering a stranger a ride home (especially if that stranger is an attractive member of the opposite sex, and on a set of crutches). It was probably even weirder for her, but since I mentioned that I was a friend of Jaime she apparently wasn’t too put off to accept the ride. We had an agreeable time covering the 30-45 min. ride to Hamilton. A quick stop off to grab some groceries (since she would have had a hard time going to the market on her crutches), and we stopped off at Jaime’s.
We were only at Jaime’s a for few minutes before it was decided to go to a party being held by another visiting prof. As late as it was (nearly midnight) that party broke up shortly after we arrived. In the end, I spent the rest of the night hanging out with Jaime and talking about a variety of issues. We eventually ran out of steam around 5am, and I crashed in his guest room for the night (uh, day..whatever).