The Beautiful and Historic Hudson River Valley

The Mid-Hudson Bridge from the RR Bridge

This place was never on our radar screen 18 months ago.  But thanks to the serendipity of a casual conversation with a former business colleague in California and a delightful experience at the Tanglewood Festival in western Massachusetts last summer, here we are.  The Hudson River Valley is rich with beauty and history.  And we’re delighted to spend five (5!) whole nights in one place in a quiet wooded campground.

FDR's home in Hyde Park, NY

After the Ken Burns'' PBS documentary on the Roosevelts and listening to No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin, we wanted to make a pilgrimage to Hyde Park on the Hudson, home of FDR and Eleanor.

Through the vast open spaces of Montana and South Dakota, we listened George C. Daughan’s Revolution on the Hudson: New York City and the Hudson River Valley in the War of American Independence.  We’re glad we did, as it put all these places into perspective and made us want to learn more.

A most pleasant afternoon

FDR's desk from the Oval Office

Biking the former railroad
bridge over the Hudson

View of Phougkeepsie from the bridge

We biked and walked across the Hudson on a Rails to Trail path and toured the FDR presidential library, Eleanor’s home, some Revolutionary War sites, the Vanderbilt mansion, and the home of Frederic Church, the famous painter of the Hudson Valley School in the early-mid 19^th century.  

And being the foodies we are, we ate at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) twice.  Because of my Racine Car Wash Blues (see our July 7 blog), I still have no photo ID and thus couldn’t tour West Point—a very important part of the Revolutionary War.

The Culinary Institute in a
former Jesuit monastery

Cook (or Bart Simpson?)
crossing

The highlight of this segment has been the FDR and Eleanor homes.  After he died, Eleanor vacated the place and moved to her own residence at Val Kill, basically across the road.  She left their home exactly as it was, so we could see everything as it was back then.  We could see where he and Churchill smoked and drank in the living room, discussing the Lend Lease program and war strategies, where he made many fireside talks, or where FDR served King George VI and the Queen a hot dog state dinner/picnic.  All the homes we visited were so dark and poorly lit.  I guess people back then didn't need or want a lot of light.  

Vanderbilt Mansion from
the 'Gilded Age'

Washington's HQ at the end of the war

At New Windsor Cantonment, a large
Revolutionary War camp

Learning how
to amputate

Kathy’s strep throat is over and my cold is almost gone. Our temporary repairs seem to be holding.  Today (Friday) we head to Stockbridge, MA and the Tanglewood Festival, and are so excited to spend a week with Skyler, boyfriend Spencer, their dogs, and Shanti and Alan from London.  Above all, we’re looking forward to staying in a real rental cabin, not our beloved—but claustrophobic—trailer. 

Artist Frederick Church Esttate

View from the Church Estate Veranda

By the way, we find the East Coast with its dense forests and stifling humidity to be claustrophobic.  It’s hard in the haze to tell north from south, and we look forward to the occasional farm where we get just a glimpse of open land.  That’s probably why we love the vistas of the West so much and also the Hudson River Bridge.  (Also, the drivers in the West are much more courteous and not so aggressive.)

Taking care of business on the road

Three Walls, but Many Doors & Bridges

Pink Floyd's Wall

Walls have been the news the last year and more, but not all of them are on borders. We experienced three different kinds during the Midwest segment of our cross-country road trip.  One was Pink Floyd’s wall —a gigantic prop for one of his tours now suspended from the ceiling at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.  He hit the wall on drug abuse, and hence the title of his tour.

We love museums and think that this one ties with the Newseum in Washington DC as the most engaging. However, it wins hands down for the most energetic.  It is filled  with artifacts, history, music, interactive displays, and FUN!  It even partnered with the Newseum for an exhibit on Rock and Politics over the past 60 years.  As we said in a Facebook post, it was well worth the detour.  But how did that detour come about?

Michael Jackson's
Glove

Beyonce's Outfits

One of many of Lady Gaga's
performance outfits

Ringo's Drumset

In three words, we are klutzes.  We carelessly  pulled out of a large commercial campsite in Bristol, Indiana (Amish country), and our wheel chock banged the grey water tank, creating an embarrassing  flood of sink and shower water on the campground road.  By the time we finally hit the road, it was too late to make it to Buffalo, but if we headed due east and put Buffalo on the return trip, we could hit Cleveland in a few hours.  Excellent decision!  Even in our bad luck, we are lucky.  

The whole field and adjoining forest to ourselves

The ultimate lawn gnome

East of Cleveland, 150 miles, we happened upon an Airstream-only campground. We had a secluded spot and, unlike other campgrounds, immediately got into the full socialization mode with interesting people from all over.

Our next wall was hitting the wall of driving and spending a large sum on tolls. Yesterday (Sunday) we covered 380 miles through the beautiful rolling hills and forests of Pennsylvania to the Hudson Valley, but it was tense high-speed interstate driving with a lot of trucks on the road and construction detours.  Kathy was still loopy from her strep throat and and allergy meds, and I had a sore throat, but our goal was to park in a place for five whole nights.  Feruza, our Uzbek daughter from New York, met us in the campground with some homemade bread and delicacies just brought to the US by her brother.  Worth the trip!

The third wall was was in Racine, last Friday, but it was a good wall.  We experienced the power of ceilings and no walls in Frank Lloyd Wright’s S.C. Johnson administration building and research center.  Unfortunately, we could only take photos outside, but our previous blog has one from the inside that I downloaded from the Internet.

The entryway to the admin. building

Entry from the executive carport

SC Johnson
Research
Building, 

Leaving the tour, we noticed the protective rubber plate beneath our transmission was dangling.  The roads in Wisconsin and Minnesota are so rough, but Racine’s are the worst.  The helpful VW dealership put in place with zip ties at no charge  and we were on our way, to Chicago and beyond, delayed once again.

But now all is well, even though our grey water tank still leaks despite more repairs.

We’re in the Poughkeepsie-Hyde Park region now, and everything is so green, beautiful, and rich with history.  After I talked my way into an urgent care clinic without my health insurance card (see previous blog) to get a throat culture (negative so far), we  rode our bikes on a four-mile loop across a bike-pedestrian converted railroad bridged and back over  a toll bridge.

Starting the Hudson Walk/Bikeway, built in 1886,
made into a R2T in 2009

View from above

High and wide!

The RR bridge from the toll bridge

We toured Eleanor Roosevelt’s home and hiked a mile up the hill to FDR’s summer cottage.  We sat on the veranda and wondered about all the thoughts and discussions he had there overlooking the Hudson before the trees took over.  Tomorrow will be FDR’s home and library.  While we talk about walls, in retrospect we've encountered way more bridges and doors--infinitely better than most walls.

One of the cottages at Val Kil, Elanor's modest estate

The Racine Strep Carwash Blues

Until today, everything has gone to 'plan.'  (Actually we don't have a plan, other to be in Lennox, MA by the 15th and start heading home on the 22nd.)  We're staying in a beautiful county park north of Racine, and things have exceeded our expectations so far.

Cliff side County Park, Racine, WA

However, Kathy has not felt well for the last couple of days, but she rallied for a 1.5 hour driving shift yesterday and was excited to tour the famous home of H.C. Johnson designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  The tour featured a video by the two children (now in their 80s) who grew up there, which made it interesting.  Frank was a very flawed genius, and we learn more about his brilliance and peccadillos every time we tour one of his buildings.

Wingspread, by FL Wright

The expansive interior

The tour exhausted her.  Suspecting strep throat, we found an urgent care clinic, and yes, she does have strep. Fortunately, it's easily cured with four days of antibiotics.  It's great to be alive in the 21st Century!

While there, I spotted a car wash across the street and started drooling.  I couldn't wait to get pounds of grime and bugs cleaned off and the grit and crumbs vacuumed off the carpets.  It was so nice!

Then, at the vacuum station, I couldn't find my wallet.  I searched high and low--I even found some ancient Cliff Bars under the seat.   The manager and I searched the bowels of the car wash with a flashlight, but no luck.  She later viewed the surveillance videos and saw that it fell off my lap and out the door as I inserted my credit card into the pay station.  She called in a maintenance crew and they couldn't find it directly below the pay station either.  They figured it bounced off a rail and ricocheted into the pool below which starts six inches deep and descends to an eight-foot depth!

So, if it rains heavily in days ahead--when business is slow--they will pump out the liquids until they find it and mail it to me.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast looks pretty sunny.  But all wasn't lost.  I got to meet a very nice woman who took it upon herself to try to solve my inconvenient problem.We drove through some historic neighborhoods, and  I got in a nice 15 mile bike ride in along a dirt path, which was smoother than most of Racines bone jarring streets.

Tomorrow morning, we'll tour the SC Johnson Wax building also designed by Wright. I may post my own photos later.  Interestingly, Frank Lloyd Wright submitted a scaled down version of these plans for the Oregon Statesman (now the Statesman-Journal in Salem).  He was turned down because of his reputation for vastly exceeding budgets.  He recycled the plans and won the bid for Johnson Wax, now SC Johnson, makers of Drano, Saran Wrap, Off, Glade, Pledge, and much more.

Then we'll head off toward Chicago and beyond-- with one good credit card in a nice clean VW, pulling a very dirty Airstream, with a much healthier Kathy as our navigator. If I don't get pulled over by a cop or try to buy booze, I should be fine.  (I got carded at the grocery store yesterday!)   

The Green Black Hills and the Good Badlands

It's one thing to fly across the country in four or five hours to appreciate its vastness.   Driving takes it to a whole new level.  So far, we've covered only 2,015 miles from Salem to Rochester, MN, and we are in awe, especially today, Independence Day.  One of the songs on our play list as we crossed into the verdant prairie of Minnesota was the Boston Pops' rendition of "American the Beautiful."  So appropriate, beautiful, and emotional.  It should be our national anthem.  

Devils Tower Ntl Monument

After our first night in Umatilla with friends, we traced part of the Lewis & Clark trail over the Lolo Pass, MT, where we camped.  It took nearly two days to get across Montana and NE Wyoming, but it was beautiful every inch of the way.  

We must return and spend more time there!  South Dakata, especially the western part, was a delightful surprise.  We were expecting sagebrush, sand, and desolation.  Instead, we were wowed by lush greenery, majestic scenery, and unbelievably friendly people.  

In the Wind Cave NP & Custer Area

We spent four nights in a rustic and beautiful campground in the 73,000 acre Custer State Park, and it wasn't enough. One or two weeks would have been more appropriate.  We rode part of the George S. Mikelson rail-to-trail,  We saw Crazy 

       

 saw the Cazy Horse Monument (from a distance on the trail), saw lots of bison, 

toured one of the longest and unusual caves in the world at Wind Cave National Park, 

Inside Wind Cave

Cave formations in the rock before the cave was formed

saw Mt. Rushmore, drove the Needles Highway and hiked in the granite cathedral-like spires.

                                 

The Needle

One of the tunnels on the Needles Highway

Heading East past Rapid City and the kitchey Wall Drug, the stunning Badlands arose from the desolate prairie.  They weren't the Badlands, they were the Greatlands!

The Minuteman National Monument and interpretive center was right afterward.  Built on the site of a former nuclear missile silo, it reminded us of what it was like growing up in the Cold War and how much danger we still face in a highly-armed world.  

As the SD license plate tagline says, "Great faces, Good places."  We couldn't agree more!  Plus the people, roads, and rest stops are good, too.

After a long day, we found one site in a crowded RV park near the Missouri river and a Lewis & Clark campsite.  We were treated to a parade of decorated golf carts and ATVs from the residents who spend their entire summer there.  All in all a good day, and a nice trip so far.