Sometimes it really does pay to check out your own backyard. I am perfectly aware that the Hudson Valley county I live in is chock-a-block with history and stories, but don’t always pay attention. Goshen, New York, is a case in point. Sure, I knew it had some history related to horse-racing, but mostly it was the place where I got my bike fixed and bought decent wine.

That’s changed. While waiting for a quick meeting with our lawyer, my husband, son, and I, along with a visiting friend, wandered around the ample-sized village for about an hour, munching on lunch and looking at the architecture. The place is full of surprises. We stumbled upon this plaque, for example, on a side-street, and learned from it that Noah Webster, of dictionary fame, used to teach here in a two-room schoolhouse in the 1700s. My county’s full of such plaques, mostly relating to the Revolutionary War. I should pay more attention.

I did know, however, that Goshen was home to the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame, one of the most important places in harness-racing history. Harness racing is a horse-racing event in which the horses are hooked to a lightweight two-wheeled cart in which the jockey rides. Basically like a Roman chariot race, as far as I can tell. The horses or event are called “trotters,” which has nothing to do with “the trots,” trust me.

The Trotters Museum, as it’s sometimes called, hosted harness racing’s most important event, The Hambletonian, up until 1956 — think Belmont Stakes. It is still a working racetrack. And, unlike most racetracks, you can walk through the grounds and peek in the stables at the gorgeous thoroughbreds cooling their heels between races. Hooves, I mean.

Goshen is a small place, but pleasant. There is a 9-mile paved biking trail that starts in Goshen and runs to the Village of Monroe. Built on a defunct railbed, it’s popular with cyclists, walkers, joggers, and new mothers in shock pushing their new babies in strollers for a couple hours of outdoor peace (I speak from experience). The Goshen Gourmet Bakery sells baked goods (obviously) and coffee, along with sandwiches and such during lunch hour, and is a popular place to hang out. It’s next door to Joe Fix-It’s, one of the best bicycle stores I’ve ever frequented (and to my husband’s delight it runs a model train shop during wintertime). They’re up the road from the old railway station, now a police station, but still maintaining its original architecture. I usually park there to pop over to High Withers Wine & Spirits for a quality bottle, or some of Doc’s Apple Cider, some of the best alcoholic cider I’ve ever tasted, brewed about 20 miles away.

If you stay for a few hours or a couple days, I can highly recommend Dave’s BBQ down on Main Street, which looks a bit like it might be a chain, but in fact serves fantastic Southern-style barbecue, collards, and cornbread (including vegetarian options), made as often as possible from local ingredients and is seriously tasty. You can also check out what I think of as the second ugliest building in America further up the road (the first ugliest is Boston City Hall, built in a similar style but looking a lot like a badly designed Vogon spaceship). It’s the Orange County government seat, where people like me get our driver’s licenses and avert our eyes. The construction style is known as “brutalist,” which is pretty apt.

The main town green is attached to a massive stone Presbyterian church, and is the location for town events (such as Fourth of July celebrations) and the Friday Farmer’s Market, where you can buy everything from produce to pies to pickles. Running out the back end of the church property is a long row of historical buildings built in a variety of aesthetically pleasing architectural forms and known as “Lawyer’s Row,” for the sheer quantities of law offices they contain.

Goshen is indeed a town of history, horses, and lawyers, all of which give it an unmistakable air very akin to a New England village: peaceful, complacent, but very much alive.