We bid Half Moon Cove Marina a fond farewell and slid quietly into the fog. Visibility was 2 miles, enough to see the next markers and oncoming boats, but not enough to make out things past the shoreline.

Once the hills got higher than the clouds it was like driving in a tunnel of woods and rocks. Not much for sightseeing. After about an hour the clouds lifted and the fog cleared and we could see along the sides. So many amazing houses embedded in the hillsides!

Some barge traffic both ways, we did well passing the one by West Point. We picked up speed (from our normal 9 knots to 14 knots to get around and ahead. It’s just a blip in the video.

West Point is huge and it’s another of those places that uses every square inch of the hill. I can see why it was a great place to mount guns. High up, on part of the river that makes a 90 degree turn so boats have to present a broad side to you going by and have to also slow down.

We soon docked at Newburgh NY at Riverside Marina. It’s a great place to be a boater, 5 places to eat within a 5 minute walk.

A friend of Susan’s came to visit, after a boat tour and some chatting we headed up to the showroom / factory for Orange County Choppers (from the TV show American Chopper). The showroom had some of the more famous bikes (Firefighter, Police, Spider, Apache Copter) and a ton of OCC clothing. We got there too late the build area was dark and empty. It is a pretty amazing machine shop with bike assembly on one side and a wide array of lathes, cutters, benders on the other.

On the way back we stopped for a dinner of ribs, burgers and chicken. The best part was the baked beans with burnt ends. (Burnt ends are the crispy parts of the pork shoulder that they trim away before shredding the pork for sandwiches. Some places sell just a platter of Burnt Ends, try it).

Next morning (Friday) was cloudy / drizzly. We headed out to Motorcyclepedia it is 85,000 square feet of museum space with over 450 Motorcycles from 1897-Today. Best part are the timeline Indian and Harley Davidson galleries. Well not really, the BEST part was a number of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s bikes from the late 60′s and early 70′s. As a kid that built models, they were the best with the wacky designs and colors.

We had gotten hooked up with one of the volunteer docents, he gave us a tour of the Harley’s and the earliest bikes. There were a lot of cool mechanical designs back in the early years of motorcycles. They are only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, well worth the trip.

Susan’s friend headed home and we managed to squeeze a nap in for the afternoon. The Culinary Institute of America is near our next stop, but sadly all three restaurants were fully booked. So that will need to wait for our next loop for us to try.

Now that the oven is working, Susan made meat loaf and butternut squash for dinner. Yum!

Saturday started off in the same foggy blend, but the National Weather Service held promise for a nicer afternoon. So I cleaned the outside of the boat, filled both water tanks and got us pumped out. We were ready to head north, and by 10:30 the weather had cleared and at 11 we were off.