From: John Freeman [johnfree@pacbell.net]

Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2000 9:41 PM

Subject: New York, Ichabod Crane Country

 

 

(you English majors out there, please cut me some slack for my chronic and egregious waffling between present and past tense - it's just that ... sometimes I was, and sometimes I is... OK???)

 

 

Saturday Oct 14� Lee, MA - Stockbridge - Hudson, NY - Hyde Park, NY

 

Traffic hell resumes this morning just where it left off last night.� I have a bagel then read my mail on the Lee Public Library internet computer, then it's off to the Hudson River Valley, which I have identified as the route by which I will get from north of NYC to south of NYC.

 

I drive through Stockbridge, MA, which is a beautiful little town with big, elegant homes and way too much traffic.

 

All of these little towns are on a river.� I have been following the Hoosatonic River today.� And at every town the river is dammed to make a nice big pond with a big solid brick or stone building next to the dam that used to be the mill, but nowadays is either abandoned, or an outlet mall, or some kind of office building.

 

I hit the Hudson Valley at the town of Hudson.� The architecture is totally different from New England.� The way the row houses smack up against the sidewalk reminds me of Baltimore.�

 

After Hudson, the road down the east side of the river is kind of boring for a while, then suddenly gets very scenic.� There are substantial hills on both sides of the river, so that you look out from the heights on your side at the heights on the other side, and with the fall colors, blue skies, sailboats on the river, it's pretty darned nice.

 

I pull off at a state park which is the grounds of a mansion called Cleremont.� I'm so excited by the beauty of it all that I romp around the grounds for an hour or so, sniffing my way around the edges of the place like some kind of crazed border collie.� This place has a bunch of huge black walnut trees, and you can hear the walnuts going whack! if they hit the parking lot, or whomp! if they hit the grass.� I think it would hurt if they hit me.

 

At a town called Rhinebeck I leave the main road for a side road that follows the river even more closely, going through another town called Rhinecliff.� This area is serious Ichabod Crane country.� The Dutch-style houses are really cool.� Also, it is serious Lazio country.� I will make it through NY without ever seeing a Clinton sign or sticker!

 

I do a quick once over of another state park with a beautifully situated mansion.� This one looks like a wing of Versailles.

 

I decide that this would be another good night to camp somewhere SOON lest I drive too far and get sucked into the NYC vortex.

 

My AAA book tells me that there is another conveniently located state campground five-ish miles away that has not closed for the season, right on the heights above the Hudson, so I drive there, stake out a spot, and head to town for foodstuffs.

 

Sorry to repeat myself, but the weather is unbelievably fine.� I'm sitting here barefoot, fresh out of the communal shower, with my feet up, typing in the dark!� This is my first experience in outdoor night typing, and the darned gnats walking around the screen make it hard to tell where the cursor is (not to mention having to bend the screen to an acute angle so it will cast light on the keyboard).

 

The ranger sez they got too much rain all summer, and this is the nicest weather they've had all season.�

 

Since I am now a blas� camping veteran, I get out the not-for-resale DVD that Martha scored for me from Silver Screen and watch it in the comfort of my camper shell.� Now that's livin'!

 

 

Sunday Oct 15� Hyde Park, NY - Poughkeepsie - Storm King - West Point - Fort Lee, NJ - Hoboken - Trenton - Asbury Park, NJ

 

The day started out in a deceptively mellow fashion.� I broke camp (i.e. packed the truck), drove about 4 miles to the Vanderbilt mansion, where I enjoyed yet another fantastic view.� These Hudson estates are the wildest examples of over-the-top conspicuous consumption this side of the Loire Valley.� There is probably some profound observation to be made about the American robber barons and the 17th-18th century French nobility, but I can't quite pull it together to make it.

 

Then I drove another 4 miles to the FDR mansion.� This one is a national park, and has a bit of a different feel, like a place where work actually got done as opposed to the robber baron showplaces.� I took a nice little 5-ish mile hike through the woods and meadows and down to the river and back.

 

That unfortunately turned out to be the end of fun for my day.� My ill-conceived plan was to follow US 9 straight down the NJ border to get past New York City.� The approach to the city continued to be quite beautiful along the Hudson.� I crossed from the east side to the west side at Poughkeepsie, with the notion that the afternoon sun would be behind me as I looked at the other side, rather than in my face as it had been on the east side.

 

A very pretty drive through the little towns and around Storm King, which is a mountain that butts right up against the river, for that extra dramatic Rhine look.� Then drove along the edge of West Point, then more pretty river towns as the roads... get... ever... more... crowded....�

 

Then at Fort Lee NJ, the pleasantness ended.� I was in for about 40 miles of seriously dysfunctional New Jersey traffic.� Crummy 4 lane highway with bad cars, bad drivers, bad traffic lights, bad road signs, and big potholes.� At some butt-ugly intersection in Hoboken (or was it Trenton?) the US 9 signs completely disappeared and I almost ended up in the Lincoln Tunnel.� But I eventually got back on track by getting onto something called the Skyway.� Apparently taking the Skyway is so obvious that it doesn't need signs for the actual routes that use it.

 

I was flashing on Bonfire of the Vanities, where the guy took a wrong turn in a crummy neighborhood that changed his life forever.

 

The Skyway shunted me onto the NJ Parkway, by way of which I soon made it to the relative calm of northern NJ.� There is a National Seashore right at the northern tip of NJ.� I could see the World Trade Center towers in the distance from these beautiful wild sand dunes.� It was all very nice, but I was in a bit of a state of post-traumatic stress with a bit of a pounding headache and so didn't enjoy it too much.� It was also getting dark.

 

The Nat Seashore had no campground, so I got lost and more stressed in the trackless wastes of the NJ 'burbs and eventually took a room at the first motel I ran across, in the home of the Boss, Asbury Park, NJ.