If you see not a soul on a Sunday on the winding, two-lane road from Wattsburg into New York state, don't be fooled.
They're all at the DV, I swear.
The DV is the Dutch Village restaurant in Clymer, N.Y.
That's a cozy warren of rooms where you can't help but get caught up in the swell of neighborly chatter as you pile a breakfast plate with pancakes from the buffet and bathe steaming slabs of French toast with syrup.
Where voices and laughter shoot over your head in the booth as you linger over coffee and listen in on chitchat between sisters and cousins who live just up the road.
Where you contemplate helping yourself to another hunk of apple crisp -- something to savor as you ogle the crafts, toys and holiday tchotchkes that spill out along the walls from the jam-packed gift shop.
Where the warm-ups keep coming.
The day seems full of possibility.
And your only concern is to decide which chubby loaves of fresh bread from the bakery case you'll take home when you leave.
And when all of these native New Yorkers -- and Pennsylvanians like me, who occasionally cross state lines just to eat breakfast -- file out of the DV, out into the crisp fall air on Main Street around 11 a.m. (that's when the doors here close on Sundays). Maybe they, too, decide on a whim to point the car in any direction.
Maybe they, too, take the long way home, just to soak up the quiet, the stillness and the autumn colors of this southwestern-most corner of the Empire State.
Head west on Route 474, and as you climb the hill back toward New Buffalo Road, look off to the right: You'll likely see the final streaks of color clinging to leaves in the valley landscape this time of year.
You'll see sprawling farms, sun-filled meadows, lazy cows, horses swishing their tails and neat, tidy homes tucked back into hillsides.
You might spot the older couple I saw out for a walk, ambling up the road with their dog.
Just outside Clymer, if you turn onto Route 426 and head toward Findley Lake, you can still catch sight of sumacs painted that brilliant shade of flame red.
You might also spot that tiny apple tree perched randomly at the edge of a field: the one that windstorms have lately left leafless, but still studded with fruit.
Here and there, you'll spot those sprawling blankets of golden-yellow leaves spreading out beneath maples. The leaves that sometimes kick up and swirl in the breeze, casting a buttery glow back up into the branches.
Suddenly, there's a sign for cocker spaniel pups.
Then a bridge someone's perched pumpkins on, just for fun, over the trickling creek below.
Closer to Findley Lake, on the left, the late-morning sun glints for a moment off slab-style stones in a roadside cemetery.
If you take this ride before snow dusts those old stones white, it'll be good for your soul.
And you'll have a small but cozy memory to last all winter.
JOAN BENSON-CACCHIONE can be reached at 870-1737 or at joan.cacchione@timesnews.com.
They're all at the DV, I swear.
The DV is the Dutch Village restaurant in Clymer, N.Y.
That's a cozy warren of rooms where you can't help but get caught up in the swell of neighborly chatter as you pile a breakfast plate with pancakes from the buffet and bathe steaming slabs of French toast with syrup.
Where voices and laughter shoot over your head in the booth as you linger over coffee and listen in on chitchat between sisters and cousins who live just up the road.
Where you contemplate helping yourself to another hunk of apple crisp -- something to savor as you ogle the crafts, toys and holiday tchotchkes that spill out along the walls from the jam-packed gift shop.
Where the warm-ups keep coming.
The day seems full of possibility.
And your only concern is to decide which chubby loaves of fresh bread from the bakery case you'll take home when you leave.
And when all of these native New Yorkers -- and Pennsylvanians like me, who occasionally cross state lines just to eat breakfast -- file out of the DV, out into the crisp fall air on Main Street around 11 a.m. (that's when the doors here close on Sundays). Maybe they, too, decide on a whim to point the car in any direction.
Maybe they, too, take the long way home, just to soak up the quiet, the stillness and the autumn colors of this southwestern-most corner of the Empire State.
Head west on Route 474, and as you climb the hill back toward New Buffalo Road, look off to the right: You'll likely see the final streaks of color clinging to leaves in the valley landscape this time of year.
You'll see sprawling farms, sun-filled meadows, lazy cows, horses swishing their tails and neat, tidy homes tucked back into hillsides.
You might spot the older couple I saw out for a walk, ambling up the road with their dog.
Just outside Clymer, if you turn onto Route 426 and head toward Findley Lake, you can still catch sight of sumacs painted that brilliant shade of flame red.
You might also spot that tiny apple tree perched randomly at the edge of a field: the one that windstorms have lately left leafless, but still studded with fruit.
Here and there, you'll spot those sprawling blankets of golden-yellow leaves spreading out beneath maples. The leaves that sometimes kick up and swirl in the breeze, casting a buttery glow back up into the branches.
Suddenly, there's a sign for cocker spaniel pups.
Then a bridge someone's perched pumpkins on, just for fun, over the trickling creek below.
Closer to Findley Lake, on the left, the late-morning sun glints for a moment off slab-style stones in a roadside cemetery.
If you take this ride before snow dusts those old stones white, it'll be good for your soul.
And you'll have a small but cozy memory to last all winter.
JOAN BENSON-CACCHIONE can be reached at 870-1737 or at joan.cacchione@timesnews.com.
For more information on Chautauqua Lake Real Estate & Living visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com
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