Day 42 - Suburban Albany

We had to venture into the suburbs of Albany to buy supplies for our train trip to Montreal. There is no supermarket downtown and we can't rely on Amtrak food for a whole day. Fortunately Google maps accurately shows the times of Albany buses so our first experience travelling on a local bus was fine.

Our destination was the Whole Foods Market at the Colonie Center about 8kms from our hotel. Across the road there is another group of stores at Northway Shopping Center. Most people here drive to the shops, and drive from one shop to the next, so shopping mall carparks are huge and not pedestrian friendly. First stop was the pet shop then we went to Target. We like to see the different goods on sale and compare prices. A lot of things are much more expensive here.

Lunch was at the Cheesecake Factory where we had salmon and salad and chicken and salad - no cheesecake. The place is seriously over decorated but the food was OK.

The Colonie Center was built in 1966. Its main anchor store was Sears department store but that was closed in 2017 and remains empty. The LL Bean outdoor shop is the busiest in the country and we helped maintain its reputation. We did some people watching and bought a few small things not readily available back home.

It was dark when we caught the 905 bus back to downtown Albany, or thought we did. In fact we had confused ourselves about which side of the road to catch the return bus and realised we were on the 905 headed for downtown Schenectady, 20 miles from our hotel! We consulted other passengers who told us where to get off and cross the road to wait at a well lit bus shelter. We checked with Google maps and learned we would be standing at the bus stop for 15 minutes.

My thoughts went to the very high crime rate in Albany. It is the 7th most unsafe city in the USA. We were within sight of a Wendy's restaurant but the surrounding streets were not well lit. The security lights in the car yard next to the bus stop came on and that helped. Another woman came to wait at the bus stop and fortunately the bus turned up on time.

As we were walking from the bus stop to our hotel we passed the woman who had served us at LL Bean, who not surprisingly recognised us and said hello. We had a similar experience in Nashville when we caught a bus to Hillsboro Village. A woman who had served us at a restaurant the previous day stopped to say hello. About a dozen people have asked us if we are sisters

After dropping our shopping back at our hotel we walked one block to The Hollow Bar and Restaurant. Next door is Lodge's, the oldest continuously operated store downtown, selling cheap clothing, school uniforms and medical scrubs.