follow us as we follow the Hudson river

Well, after our fun trip to New York City and Long Island, Daiku and I decided to head back on Tuesday morning. I was pretty happy to be getting out of the city because, even though the whole weekend had been pretty hot and muggy, Tuesday's heat index was forecast at over 100 degrees- yeowch!

Instead of a regular straightforward drive home to Syracuse, which should normally take 4 hours, we took the meandering route by following the Hudson River and stopping in as many of its picturesque towns and attractions as possible. It took us 11 (!) hours to get home, but we saw SO much. So follow us as we...

...visit Lyndhurst castle in Tarrytown, one of America's biggest Gothic Revival-style structures, and an example of the huge mansions all along the river...

...to the town of Sleepy Hollow, where the cemetery houses such notables as...

...Washington Irving (no headless horseman on this day!) and ...

...William Rockefeller (gee, robber barons didn't like their graves to be understated, did they??)...

...the town of Beacon, home to the wonderful contemporary art housed at the Dia Center (which, in a true "d'oh!" moment, we realized is closed on Tuesdays)...

...but there was a cool coffee shop with magnificent pieces of furniture such as this chair, where we cooled off with an iced coffee before heading to the...

...Franklin D. Roosevelt museum and library in Hyde Park (also home to the kinder gentler CIA, a.k.a. the Culinary Institute of America) where Daiku posed with the president and the first lady....

...and where we saw beautiful flowers such as this lavender growing in the expansive gardens...

...then we got to the Vanderbilt mansion, perched on a cliff overlooking the river...

...with grounds that inspire ambling...

...and finally to the town of Red Hook, where we were happy to find a deli (J & J's Gourmet Deli) that had plenty of veg. options such as this handmade veggie burger and thick-cut fries...

That wasn't all- we got to see so many other towns, such as Yonkers, Saugerties, and Woodstock, whose names immediately inspire familiarity. Even though it was a really hot day, the heat was not nearly as bad as what our friends in NYC were living through that day, and the further north we went, the cooler we got. We later found out that we just barely missed the torrential rains and floods that took place in the city later that day and into the night. In fact, the road we took, the Bronx River Parkway, was so flooded the next day that some people had to abandon their cars. Whew- dodged a bullet there!

P.S. Most of the attractions mentioned in this post are free of cost, and for those that opt not to drive, the Amtrak stops at many of the towns along the Hudson River, such as Tarrytown, Beacon, etc.

follow us as we follow the Hudson river