Millstones line the edge of the Kayderosseras Creek in the Axe Factory Preserve.

The budget negotiations in Washington might have seemed easy compared to the negotiations in our house. My wife, Gillian, and I had our teen on the verge of “yes” to a border-to-border walk of the village of Ballston Spa. We thought our sweetener of lunch at the Iron Roost, a Ballston Spa institution, would push the negotiations over the finish line but sadly, an eleventh-hour invitation from a friend proved better than our offer and sunk our negotiations – no deal.

Ballston Spa is the county seat of Saratoga County. If you would have guessed Saratoga was the county seat, so would I. Ballston Spa is one of 62 county seats in New York and one of 532 incorporated villages. I hope to explore all of them under my own power, either on foot or by bike, in an effort to better know this state of ours.

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The southern border of the village sits on a bluff above the Kayaderosseras Creek. As we made our way north, we descended and the village stretched out below us. We could see how the town........

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