Trip on Hudson River, visit to West Point and Vanderbilt Mansion

June 9, 2002 - Trip on Hudson River, visit to West Point and Vanderbilt Mansion

After saying goodbye to Catherine on Saturday, we worked the rest of the day getting ready to leave on Sunday for our journey up the Hudson River. We left on Sunday morning and planned on stopping at Tarrytown, but they didn't have room for us, so we continued on to Haverstraw New York. We were going to stay there a day and rent a car to tour West Point and the surrounding tourist things, but Enterprise Car Rental messed us up and never got us a car. At noon on Monday we decided to leave Haverstraw and go to Marlboro and try to get a car there to do our touring. So we got to Haverstraw, got settled and walked up a HUGE hill to town and found that there wasn't anything to see there and we went back to the boat for dinner. The Hudson River along here is very pretty, but we have seen a lot of debris in the river from the spring run off, so we have to be very careful. It is deep water and there is a lot of rock formation along both sides, along with lovely castles, farms and homes. While I was napping the weather started to deteriorate and it started to rain hard, and when I woke up I found Bill frantically trying to tune the radar in and follow the charts and close the windows all at the same time so that everything didn't get too wet. I guess I wasn't being a very good first mate. I don't know why he didn't wake me up?? He must have thought I needed some BEAUTY SLEEP.

We did get a car on Tuesday and went to visit West Point, the Vanderbilt Mansion and Franklin D. Roosevelt home and library in Hyde Park New York with beautiful views of the Hudson. Of course we couldn't pass up a chance to visit the Culinary Institute of America where we did some tasting. A very full but fun day. Today we cruised to the Catskill Marina right in the heart of the Catskill Mountains about 42 miles away. The highlight of our day in the Marlboro area was the lunch we had with Debbie Whitlock and her sister Barb. The day before while I was looking at a map I realized that we were very close to where Debbie came from in Connecticut. So I called her in Aspen where she lives now and left her a message that we were in her neck of the woods and wondered if by chance she would be visiting there. Well, while we were waiting to board our bus for the tour of West Point, she called us on our cell phone and she, indeed, was visiting only about 30 miles away. What a hoot. She and her sister Barb drove over to meet us for lunch in a cute little town, Cold Springs, and we had a great lunch and visit. We know Debbie from our Aspen days, and it is such fun to keep in touch. Deb, thanks for dropping everything and coming to see us. It was great fun!

Our trip to Troy New York was uneventful and it took about 4 hours. It wasn't a very nice day as it was cloudy and cool. The Hudson wound it's way around and the scenery started to be much more commercial around the Albany and Troy area. These areas look like they used to be quite prosperous in their day, but they look pretty rundown and poor now, with many boarded up and empty buildings, much like Benton Harbor. Kind of sad to see the decay. We are going to stay in Troy tomorrow so that our mail can catch up with us and we can get reorganized for the trip into Lake Champlain. There will be a dozen locks in the next few days. The weather is forecasted to be rainy and cooler all weekend, so we can look forward to being plenty wet. Oh well!!! Actually it hasn't been very nice weather ever since we left New York - just a lot of gray days. Maybe someone is preparing us for our arrival in Michigan later this summer. Hopefully the sun will come out again soon.

I did laundry and Bill did some varnishing today before it rained and then we walked to town to mail a package to Daniel for his Birthday, and the Post Office finally found our mail that we had had sent from the office, and that hadn't been delivered to the marina. We were relieved, as we didn't know how we would get it after we left here. When we arrived back at the marina we noticed that there were 2 boats right near us from St. Joe. Michigan - what a riot. What a small world. One was a sailboat called Tom Cat and the other is a trawler called High Hopes. We met the people and they are both living aboard their boats now and traveling all over. Wonder if we'll see them again on our journey???