Sunday, August 9, 2009

Down the Hudson River

Hello again!
We are still camping and away from the internet, but that is changing. We are in a room tonight in the city of Hudson New York. Last time we posted in Westport NY, we found after all the campgrounds we have stayed in, the Barber Homestead Park in Westport NY to be the best. All-around great place.

(Lake Champlain from Barber Homestead Camp)










The next day was another short day to Ticonderoga NY. Another scenic area, and a large Fort to boot.



(Ft. Ticonderoga)










As we have traveled down lake Champlain and now the Hudson river, we are finding many of the small towns have nasty steep climbs right at the city limits. Port Henry was the worst, in that it was hidden at first and we had the stand on our creeper gear for several minutes to get up it. We were shaky for a half hour afterward.

The next day was on to Queensbury NY. It was off route by a few miles and is near a Six-Flags amusement park. The roads were grid-locked near the park, but the sidewalks were perfect for us. The next day, a local person told us about the bike trails along the canals in the area. The one we took was a "feeder" canal to the main Champlain canal. They are not paved but were great. Almost no one there except kayaks.

(Champlain Feeder Canal)










From Queensbury we rode to Schatghticote (near Mechanicville) NY. This part of the route is dotted with historic sites from the earliest history of the US. We stopped at the Saratoga Battlefield park.

(Saratoga Cannon)










Just in case you think we are nuts, there are other crazy pastimes that are available. In the campground last night we talked to a group of competitive 100+ year old fire truck people. They tour the east coast to see who's pumper wagon can squirt the furthest. About 200 feet is what 50 people working this one can do. It sounded like a novel excuse to party.

(Pumper Wagon, built in Waterford NY, 1889)









Finally, we cycled through Albany NY today to Hudson NY. Albany (and Troy) reminded me of East Cleveland in many ways. Our tandem really turns heads in the inter-city. We also noticed this dog.... It was on top of the Irish-American museum. We had a long discussion about this.












So we are two days away from the end of the trip in Windsor Locks, CT. As of today we have cycled 1368 miles. We will need a new rear tire. The weather is turning poor for the next day or so, but it should not slow us down. We'll post before we leave.

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