Monday, August 13, 2007

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.


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21 comments:

anna/village vegan said...

It's kind of sad that I live in NYC but I've never actually explored New York state. Definately something to do when I come back from Germany...

Anonymous said...

I feel really dumb now: I didn't even know there is a town called Sleepy Hollow, for real.

Anonymous said...

My daughter recently moved to NJ and has been to Woodstock. I'm hoping to visit her in October, and MAYBE go to Farm Sanctuary. Now you've given me a whole lot of other places to add to the list!

Anonymous said...

great to learn more of Usa!

cute photo!

Vegan_Noodle said...

What an awesome mini-road trip home! Looks like you got to see some pretty historical and interesting sites. It's always fun to explore places in your own state...we are usually so busy trying to get OUT of Texas that we sometimes forget to look right around us! Looks like you don't have that problem with NY though!

Anonymous said...

What a fun journey. Marty & I have been so busy this year that we haven't had many opportunities to travel and explore the East Coast. I can't wait until we are able to because there is so much here I am excited to see.

ajnabieh said...

we did a similar little jaunt after i went to a conference in poughkeepsie. it's a beautiful drive, especially if you keep to 9A.

oh, and the flooding was only the beginning--the tornado struck three blocks from my house. ouch.

Anonymous said...

You guys are so cute ! I love that picture of the two of you :)

Thanks for your visit to my blog. I have been downloading food pics today so I'll post something this week but how funny to read your comment because I have been thinking about you for the last few days, wondering what you were up to.

So great that you got to visit all these neat towns and places. My hubby just went back to work today after two weeks "vacation" that was spent working on the house again so I can't wait for September when we will have a few more days of real vacation ;-)

Kati said...

Cool trip! In all the years I lived in NY, I never saw ANY of those things...amazing. That picture of you and Daiku is too cute! Love that chair in the coffee shop, too.

Theresa said...

Ahh, the Hudson. My hometown is a river town, though we're a little way upstream from where the major pollution starts (cough cough GE cough). I went swimming in that river often when I was a kid. My sister lives in Poughkeepsie, overlooking the Hudson... though I don't think you'd really want to swim in it that far down.

I haven't spent much time in the southern part of NY like that, but the Catskills are such a pretty area. My main memory is going to Catskill Game Farm (so not vegan) when I was, like, 4. I can still sing the jingle for that place...

Anonymous said...

Great pics -- I love that you were able to find things to do that were free or low cost. Just proves that you don't have to spend a lot of money to have fun.

Anonymous said...

This Web site (www.hudsonvalley.org) has a lot of great info about interesting attractions in the Hudson Valley. Pretty much all of them are worth a visit from NYC.

Emilie said...

uh, please be cuter, 'k? thanks.

(looks infinitely better than my trip back from nyc which involved greyhound, a gaggle of aussie tourists, a bout of motion sickness and a horrible "in-bus" movie!)

aTxVegn said...

Thanks for sharing those photos. You two look wonderful together!

KleoPatra said...

Love the kissyface!! Awwwwwwww!

Thank you for the way cool trip. Stuff like this makes me so glad i "know" you, Bazu. i really appreciate your sharing this info and photo essay.

dreamy said...

I also didn't know Sleepy Hollow exist for real :) I hope the story of the headless horseman wasn't for real, that would be really scary :S

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