Hudson River Cruise

Friday, October 10th, A day in Catskill -- Very sunny after a cool morning; mist rising from the river.

Early morning after a freezing night.

Today's plan was breakfast, a morning drive in the Catskill State Park, walk back to the ship through town, free time all afternoon (though Betsy and I watched a documentary video (Ticonderoga to Albany - important revolutionary war sites), cocktails, and dinner.

We are on the bus ride and are seeing the first hint of color in the trees as we ride up into the Catskills. 

The guide on the bus, who lives in NY and has been entertaining folks on these cruises for 18 years, talked nonstop on the ride up to the state park and back.  He shared some interesting facts:

• This area is agricultural, with small farms growing apples, onions, cows, and other minor stuff.
• There are more apple tree varieties in NY than anywhere else.
• The local milk is particular good and the ice cream made from it is noteworthy.
• Christmas trees in America began here in 1851 by a guy who was clearing land of white pines, thought they would make good firewood and took them to NYC without stripping off the branches.  They were snatched up by fashionable families (following a new European fad) and hence the Christmas tree tradition was born.
• The Catskills have a history of inns and resorts, known as the Borsht belt, where many famous performers got their start.  Sadly or not, most are now gone (burned down in the 50s and 60s).when the area became unpopular.   Pete Seeger use to live here and held music camps for newbies.  One of the newbies he helped (Seeger gave his guitar to a boy who could not afford one) was Neil Diamond.
• The state park grew from 73,000 acres to 777,000 acres during the Depression as a result of a NY policy to subsidize  property taxes on estate owners who could no longer pay the taxes themselves.  The deal was that the property could be passed down to family members but could not be sold to anyone other than the State Parks Department,  To this day, there are many substantial houses surrounded by park land.
• The cats in the area originally were bobcats and cougars.  Cougars are gone and it is impossible to count the bobcats.  They estimate the bobcat population by counting squirrels.
• 90% of the water consumed in NYC comes from the Catskills.  The purity and mineral content provides great flavor for bread, bagels, and pizza crusts.

The Katterskill Falls, though it was merely a trickle since there was a drought this summer.

More hints of color.

Ditto.

The Rip Van Winkle Bridge -- note the cantilevered walkway on the side; it crosses the river and is known as the Hudson River Skywalk.

The Skywalk runs from the Thomas Cole home/studios to the Frederic Church Estate, known as Olana (photo below).  Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School of American Art; Church was a student who built a huge estate on a hill across the river.

Washington Irving's story was set in Catskill.

The view back to our ship, the American Liberty.

Betsy and I got off the bus at the bridge, walked a bit of the way out, and then decided to walk back to the ship instead of riding the bus.   Catherine stuck with the bus tour back to the boat.

Our first notable sight was the Thomas Cole House and Studios.  This is the main house.

The first studio.

A photo of the inside of the studio.

The eave (note the acorn) of the second studio.

Catskill, like many other towns, have sculptures of animals that are given to businesses to decorate.  These are not official ones but are similarly decorated.

Ditto.

Thomas Cole, wife and clan burial site.

Frederic Church's Olana Estate, from a distance, a place to visit.

One (or two) cool cats, with Olana in the middle background as a speck.

The Rip Van Winkle Bridge.  Note the iron work trusses and how it goes from on top of the road deck to underneath it going left to right.  This is an allegory for the American Revolution going from colonized to freedom.

The detail of the truss change.

We skipped lunch today but made up for it by sampling the goodies at Happy Hour, including stuffed mushrooms, smoked salmon slices, and "Raspberry brie bites," accompanying with watermelon mojitos for the women and whiskey with ice for me.

Hudson River Cruise

Thursday, October 9th, Albany to Troy and boarding of the American Liberty -- Bright sunny day.  

We have "arrived" and it is so good.  We are cruising on the Hudson River.  After breakfast in Albany, we rode to Troy using Lyft and arrived at 11 am.  We were welcomed on board the American Liberty immediately, our staterooms were available shortly thereafter, and lunch was offered after unpacking.  What's not to like?  The biggest decisions we have to make are what to do (excursions, etc.), which deck to sit on to watch the scenery slide by, and what to eat.  Avoiding overeating may be the more challenging decision - food and drinks of all kinds are available pretty much all of the time in the three public spaces.  There is "cookie time" twice a day, there are cocktails before dinner, with lots of snacks, there is coffee available all-day, and there are 3 meals a day.  So, here we go....

Today's cruise went from Troy to Catskill (starting at 2:30 and lasting until 7 pm).  I spent all of this time sitting on the upper deck watching the scenery (and enjoying some snacks).  Betsy was with me for most of this, though she attended the introductory lecture focussed on the Hudson River.  Some background facts she learned:

• The Hudson is a glacier-carved river that is mostly straight with steep sides in some places.  When the ice reached the resistant granite of what is now West Point, the river channel narrowed and twisted.
• The river is 315  miles in length; we are traveling about 1/2 of it.  It averages 0.75 miles wide, at its widest point it spans 3.5 miles (above the New Jersey border); it averages 45 feet deep, but can be as deep as 150 feet.
• The headwaters are in a pair of lakes just south of Mt. Marcy (NY highpoint) in the northeast Adirondacks.
• It is tidal as far as Troy, where it is blocked by a lock;  it is brackish up to West Point in certain seasons.
• The first European explorer was Verrazano, working for the French, who traveled from Cape Fear, NC as far as the Hudson River.  Henry Hudson came next, working for the Dutch East India Company and seeking  a pathway to China, traveled up as far as Albany.  Then he went up the Canadian coast and his crew off-loaded him, his son and his first mate, based on his prior record of losing two ship crews in frozen terrain.
• The Dutch, who settled along the river, took possession of 'Manahatta' from the Lenape Indians who used the island as a hunting ground/source of food.  The Indians constructed a diagonal path across the island which the Dutch exclaimed as a nice "broad" way.  The Dutch built a small fort at the southern end, marked by a "wall" as in Wall Street and 3 small guns, as in Battery Park.  The British took over the territory, being mission driven, and the Dutch were okay with this since they more interested in trading.
• The river was a key resource in the US Revolutionary War.  Both Benedict Arnold (American) and General Borgoyne (English) perceived the strategic significance of controlling the river.  Arnold got a massive chain installed across the river at West Point to keep British ships from coming upriver.  Borgoyne fought downriver from Canada to Fort Ticonderoga.  The British ships never met up, which gave the American side an advantage.

Here ends the first history lesson; there may be more as we cruise downriver.

Here are some photos I took as we boarded, and while I sat on the back deck.

The American Liberty and the gangplank.

The main gathering space - the Chesapeake Lounge.

Stateroom 205, port side.

Ditto.

Our stateroom bathroom.

Downtown Troy, NY (where Catherine went to college at Russell Sage).

A sister ship (the American Legend) that passed by us heading north.

The rear view of the large statue of the Nipper dog on top of a warehouse, in commemoration of RCA, the inspiration for the 17 small statues scattered around Albany (see previous post).

A swing railroad bridge that opened for us.

Closing.

The "turntable" for the swing bridge.

More bridges.

Tug and barge.

Tug, next to a gravel depot and maybe other stuff.  Lots of material haulers use the river for transport.  They off-load at Albany because the Troy lock prevents them from going further upriver.

The only wildlife sighting -- a bald eagle.

The Hudson-Athens Lighthouse -- taken from the internet.  This was the only landmark pointed out by the ship's captain before arriving at Catskill.

This is the photo of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse as we saw it, wrapped in scaffolding.

We enjoyed dinner ('stuffed' shrimp) with wine and desserts before calling it a night.

Hudson River Cruise

Wednesday, October 8th, Albany -- Our second day in Albany, which started with an intense rain storm associated with the passage of a weather front.  By 10 am the  rain was mostly done, and by the end of the day, skies were clear.  In an effort to get some idea of the next 7 days, I took a photo of the TV playing in the breakfast room.

The forecast is looking good.

After breakfast in the hotel (standard fare), we walked out, with the idea of ultimately getting to the Rensselaer Train Station to meet Betsy's sister Catherine who was traveling from Boston, via NYC to Albany.  The route to the train station involved walking along an existing bike path,  detouring around some construction on the ramp up to the bridge, and crossing over the Hudson River.  To ensure that the route was passable around the construction we visited the Visitor Center.  The staff people there were very helpful and gave us advice on how to not miss the detour.  We also got a few questions answered.

Scale model of Albany in 1695.  Note the walled town with the "fort" at the top of the model on a hill.  The Hudson River is at the bottom of the photo.  Most home plots resembled the British model of land use with deep backyards, presumably for grazing and kitchen gardens.

My one representative manhole cover with the seal of Albany (it features a Dutch settler and an Indian).

One more "Nipper" dog, who represents the original dog listening to the gramophone in a nineteenth-century painting by Francis Barraud entitled "His Master's Voice.  It became famous as the RCA logo.  There are 17 of these decorated statues scattered around downtown.

View of Albany from the middle of the bridge over the Hudson River.

The Hudson River

The Rensselaer Train Station, renovated in 2002, and quite modern inside.

Catherine's train arrived a little late, but she was otherwise unscathed from her trip from Boston (which started around 6am).  Betsy and I enjoyed a midday snack/drinks in the train station while we waited for her to arrive.  We took a Lyft car back to the hotel and Catherine checked in.  After that, we all went off to same restaurant as last night (Dove & Deer), but we had an hour to wait before it opened at 4 pm.  So we circled around the capitol and plaza before heading to the restaurant.

A notable repeat from yesterday's blog post commemorating Joseph Henry for the discovery of "magnetic induction" or how to generate electricity with a magnet and a coil of wire.  All current motors, generators, and a number of other electrical devices use this principle.  Also note the time period - 1829-31.

We went by the Corinthian columns again.

And the cantilevered "Agency" buildings.

Ditto.

And one more photo of the capitol, with fountain, sculpture, and The Egg.

Sculpture of a cube with a reflective one.

Dinner at the Dove & Deer was again quite marvelous -- souvlaki chicken, truffle fries, smash burger, tropical salad, and waygu mini-hot dogs, with beer and ciders.

After dinner we walked more directly back to the hotel and retired.