Up the Hudson  May 8 – May 13

I love the Hudson River.  Having grown up in Northwestern Connecticut in a tiny town called Litchfield, we travelled all around the area and I had seen the Hudson many times.  As a small child, my parents went on a weekend trip with us on a houseboat up part of the Hudson.  As a result, I was really looking forward to this part of the river.  I wasn’t really thrilled when we left Croton-on-Hudson because it was so foggy.  For the first hour or so we didn’t see much of the scenery.  After that, the mist settled a bit and we were provided the perfect view, just as I remember it as a child and young adult.   The video came out pretty well.  The theme song Michele provided was very appropriate – by Over the Rhine. There are so many things we passed along the river that were really neat, like Sing Sing prison, the Culinary Institute of America, West Point, and lots of cool looking tiny little towns.

Bear Mountain Bridge

Sing Sing Prison

Waterfall along the Hudson

The first night we stopped in Newburgh, and one of my longtime friends, Deirdre, who I had not seen in more than 15 years joined us for an overnight.  We had a great time catching up, and then went to see OC Choppers show room.  The next day, we went to see a really cool museum called Motorcyclepedia which had over 450 exhibits.  Definitely a fun side trip.  In the morning we had beautiful weather, and I walked up the steep hill to the Newburgh Post Office.  Once we got back it was off to Kingston NY.  Here’s the video.

Kingston is a great little town that has several nice restaurants and shops, as well as a couple of museums.  We visited the Hudson River Maritime Museum which had lots of pretty fascinating exhibits.  Next we hopped on a trolley and rode to the Trolley museum, which had many antique trolleys in various stages of restoration, and an interesting exhibit hall.  We had dinner at an irish pub in town, and I enjoyed my fish and chips.

Kingston, NY

Leaving Kingston the next morning, we again had great weather and traveled to New Baltimore NY to a marina called Shady Harbor.  This marina was super organized and had a great little restaurant on site that could provide either fine dining or great pizza. The next day, Foster promised me a day off, and the marina kindly allowed us to borrow a car to do some grocery shopping.   We got a quick look at the surrounding area which was nice, not very developed at all. Sadly, the video suffered from a user error and we didn’t get the last half, which is sad because we missed Bannerman’s Castle!

Bannerman’s Castle

Sunrise at Shady Harbor

Our trip the next day was again great weather, and brought us to our first lock experience at the Troy NY lock.  We managed to capture the whole trip this time on video.  We docked at Waterford NY where the Erie canal starts, and wandered off to check out the next lock from a pedestrian’s point of view.  Later, we took a quick picture at the Angry Penguin, and then I had really fabulous Shepherd’s Pie for dinner at McGrievey’s.  Before we started off the next day, we made sure to have breakfast at a highly recommended coffee shop called Don and Paul’s before continuing on our way across the Erie Canal.

Waterford, NY

Waterford Marina