A Cup at the Cape

The weather prediction was for scattered showers and t-storms throughout the day today, so we elected to do Cape Cod in lieu of going into Boston.

I 495 runs from near our campground to the Cape, so it only took us about an hour to drive the 60 miles to Cape Cod. We attempted a casual drive around the Cape on Hwy 28, but soon found out that roughly a thousand fellow tourists were on the same page, or should I say, highway. We stopped in Falmouth for a cup of coffee, then slowly drove through Mashpee, Hyannis, and into Yarmouth. In South Yarmouth we stopped at The Skipper for lunch. A couple of bowls of Chowdah and a side of Fried Crab Cakes did the trick.

We ate on the upper deck overlooking the ocean, with the intent to visit the beach after lunch.

After lunch, we headed across the street to the beach, only to find that there is a $15 fee for accessing the shore. Since it was already 3 pm, we elected to skip the water thing and head home. We only made it about a third of the way to the end of Cape Cod with it's Pilgrim Monument and National Seashore, but maybe we'll have time to return. We would also like to take the ferry from Cape Cod to Martha's Vineyard for the day…..So much to do, and so little time!

Foxboro, Massachusetts

We left Florida, NY, and it's more well known neighbor, New York City, this morning about 10 heading north and east toward Boston. Wonder of wonders, we made it! 227 miles and about 6 hours due to heavy traffic and really crummy roads, we pulled into Normandy Farms Campground about 30 miles south of Boston. During our trip we passed from New York state to Connecticut, and then into Massachusetts.

Our route took us to I 84, across the Hudson River ($12.50 toll), and past the villages of Fishkill and East Fishkill. 84 crosses into Connecticut near Danbury, goes through Hartford, and crosses into Massachusetts just south of Worcester. Near Sturbridge we merged with I 90, the Massachusetts Turnpike until we got to I 495 where we turned south to Foxboro, just a hop and a jump from the northeast corner of Rhode Island.

Normandy Farms Campground is an upscale park with a huge number of campsites (upscale due to the many scheduled activities, the gated entry/exit, and the almost $70 a night rate). We are in site 905 with nice shade and grass. The parking area of the site is gravel, only moderately out of level, and plenty long enough for our class A and two more tow cars if we had that many. The water pressure is above average (regulator recommended), but the wifi is next to useless. It's difficult to connect to the Tengonet system, and the bandwidth is far too narrow for the number of campers here. We've come to realize that our satellite system will not work on the east coast, so it's fortunate that the park has an adequate cable tv system.

So, here we are, ready to lay waste to Boston! We have a laundry list of things to do and places to see, so we'll report back to see how that all works out.

Thomas Bull Memorial Park

Donna slipped and fell last night just before bed, and so this morning she was stiff and sore, with a bruise on her side roughly the size of the state of Connecticut. That meant that our activities were curtailed a bit today, so the day became devoted to "The Dog".

Fourteen miles northwest of Florida (NY), near the village of Montgomery, is a huge park called the Thomas Bull Memorial Park. This park includes a golf course, baseball and soccer fields, equestrian paddocks and competition areas, and a dog park.

Figuring that there would be other dogs on a Saturday, we set sail for Montgomery. On the way we passed the Orange County Airport, with an unusual visitor.

At the dog park, Sasha immediately met and made friends with Cora, a medium sized Labradoodle of about the same age. They played for hours!

They even rested together!

While Sasha was playing and Donna was socializing, I went into Montgomery and stopped at Mike's Pizza and Deli for a couple of sandwiches. I came out with two huge subs, each with enough meat (Donna=turkey, Gary=italian stuff) to sink the proverbial ship. A couple of Cannelloni's for dessert and two soda's to go led me back to the park and a bench overlooking the small lake. It was a nice, quiet, cool place for lunch!

With a stop at a roadside vegetable stand for some corn, tomatoes, onions and peaches, we headed home to begin to pack up. The park staff invited all campers to the pavilion for an ice cream social after dinner, and we joined the group. What a nice way to say good-by to Florida, New York!

On second thought, there's one more thing: Dan Lemire is the owner and chef at Chumley's BBQ Hut in Florida, NY. I have to give him and his staff a huge thumbs up for their wonderful food. Donna and I stopped in for lunch one day and enjoyed a couple of sandwiches. The "Downstate Brisket" was extremely good, D told me, and the "Uncle Eddie" that I had was to die for. Considering the salt content, that phrase may not be as funny as it could be. But the "Uncle Eddie" includes Sliced Tri Tip topped with caramelized onions and mushrooms and swiss cheese on a Ciabatta roll. Ok, it's good. So back we went for two more sandwiches on Thursday on our way home from NYC. This time we had a "Cousin Tex", with Brisket, braised red cabbage, swiss cheese, 1000 island chipotle dressing on garlic toasted ry bread. The other sandwich was a "Tailgate Steak" sandwich, with basil, garlic, and grilled onions on a garlic toasted roll.

Chef Dan was nicknamed Chumley by a high school buddy in 1978, after the chubby sidekick of Tennessee Tuxedo (look it up). Dan has been in the restaurant business since his graduation from the Culinary Institute of America, and his attention to detail shows in every meal he serves. If you're ever in the area, check it out.

Of Bicycles and Dogs

It's getting close to the end of the week, and we'll have to move on soon. But we wanted to get a taste of the local area before we left, so we searched out a bicycle trail nearby and decided that a little fresh air in the foothills of the Catskills would be the perfect thing for the day.

The Orange County Heritage Trail runs some 9+ miles along the now abandoned rail bed of the New York and Erie Railroad from Goshen, NY, to Monroe, NY, through the village of Chester. We elected to start in the middle at Chester, where we parked at the Chester Historical Society Building (the old railroad depot) and rode toward Goshen, about 5 miles away.

Couldn't resist a selfie……

The weather was perfect again today, and we barely broke a sweat on the ride. We stopped at the American House in Chester for an ice cream sundae just in case we had burned too many calories, however!

We returned to the motorhome, picked up Sasha, and took off for the dog park in Warwick, just 4 miles away. We though that after being cooped up all day yesterday and some of today that she would like to get outside and run.

Not so much.

Donna did her best to get the mutt to play, but all Sasha did was destroy the new tennis ball we had brought! Now that we're back home, she's running up and down the motorhome like it is a racetrack…what's up with that?

The Big Apple

Ok, it's been awhile since we talked. On Thursday, the 23rd, we hitched up our pants and headed for New York City. This is no mean feat from where we are staying, but we needed to spend a day in the city. A call to Jacki from Kind and Gentle Pet Care got Sasha a couple of walks during the day, so we left at about 7:30 for the nearest commuter train.

About 45 minutes northeast is the Village of Beacon. Established in the 1700's it is now a quiet little bedroom community for people working out of the area (read NYC). It is also the nearest MTA Rail station that goes directly to Grand Central Terminal. We've been instructed not to call it GC Station, because only tourists do that…. We were fortunate to nab a parking place in the metered parking area ($3.50), and headed to the train station, where we met a nice young attorney going to court in New York and felt like helping out stray tourists get their tickets. Two one-way Senior tickets for off-peak time got us on the Metro-North Hudson Line ($10.50 each), and we boarded the 8:52 to NYC, some 60 odd miles south through the Hudson River Valley,

 past West Point and Garrison, right into GCT and hour and 15 minutes later.

The opening on the left leads to the street, 42nd ave. The arrival/departure boards are on the left near the round lights. Below, the "tunnel" openings lead to train platforms. There are apparently 30 plus tracks. I say apparently because I didn't have time to scope them all out, but I did a quick calculation from the arrival/departure boards. There may be more, I don't know!

The balcony where you see the railing contains the largest Apple store in the world. It extends forever in all directions, it seems. Donna was either scheming on a new iPad or enjoying the air conditioning.

We took a side trip down one of the corridors toward Lexington Street to find Joe's Coffee. Jason, our attorney friend had recommended it, and our iced Mocha's and coffee were not a disappointment.

Then on to a level below the Grand Concourse to find the famous NYC Subway.

The preferred method of traveling the subway is to purchase a MetroCard, and put on it (at a kiosk) either an amount of money to be debited as you travel, or a specified number of trips. We didn't expect to return to the city, so we purchase single-fare tickets, which are a bit more expensive ($3 each trip), but allowed us a bit more flexibility. Our first stop on the green line (#6) downtown (because the street numbers increased) got us to 33rd St and Park Ave. Manhattan, if you didn't already know, is mostly laid out in Streets (east and west) and Avenues (north and south). Most are numbered, except for some (Park Ave). Sorta ok, but sorta confusing. Anyway, at 33rd, we exited the subway and began hoofing it west a couple of blocks to the Empire State Building.

We were met on the sidewalk by Abu, newly from Kenya, who enabled us to get tickets to the 86th floor observation deck. He made a point of saying that if we bought the "package" ($64 each), we wouldn't have to stand in line. Yeah. Turns out we wouldn't have to stand in line to get the "package" on the street level, but all the rest of the building was purely maddening with hundreds of people standing in Disney-like lines.

We finally got to the elevators, which are works of art in and of themselves.

Then zipped very smoothly to the 80th floor. We had to switch elevators (more lines) to get to the 86th floor observation deck.

View toward downtown with the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Chrysler Building, with it's ornate and unique decorative design.

The view down from almost 900 feet above street level is dizzying!

At the top, the 102nd floor observation deck is only 160 feet above us!

The magnitude of Manhattan is staggering. As far as the eye can see, the city continues to grow upward and in some cases, downward.

Apartments by the zillions abound to house the millions of people who live and work here.

To the north, Uptown, the Hudson River comes into view with Central Park in the, well, center.

And west….the rest of the world….

To the south, Lower Manhattan and the Freedom Tower with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island just barely visible.

Just a few blocks south is the world famous Flatiron Building. Built in 1902 after only one year of construction, it was, at 21 floors, one of only two skyscraper norths of 14th St. It is bounded by East 22nd, Broadway, and Fifth Avenue, and draws it's name from it's shape which resembles a cast iron clothes iron. During it's construction, the locals bet on how long it would be before it toppled over from the unpredictable winds it created! Due to it's steel framework and unusual design, the wind splits and creates an updraft around the building, actually strengthening the structure. The updrafts gave rise to the phrase "23 skidoo" as workmen would exclaim when the wind blew up a passing ladies dress!
The Flatiron Building anchors Madison Square, which has both endured and enjoyed a variety of good times and bad over the years, but is an appealing destination these days for a diverse selection of events in it's most famous venue: The Garden.

After we descended to street level and made it back to the subway, we found that different entrances place the traveler on different sides of the track, going uptown or downtown. Since that makes a huge difference, it is important to know where you're going. Unfortunately, the subway entrances are not laid out with great fanfare; you almost have to search for them. We asked a few locals for help, and everyone was very nice and informative. Not like we've heard about New Yorkers! While we deciphered the subway (again), we slipped into Little Italy and had a couple of slices with mushrooms and a soda. We marveled at the speed with which people in the city eat and move on. Got to talking to a young lady who ate two slices and drank two bottles of beer in less than 15 minutes because she was on her lunch break!

This time the #4 subway took us uptown to 59th street, where we got off and trucked west three blocks to Central Park. It was a lovely day, in the low 80's and it seemed that most of the city had the same idea: go to the park!

Tony and his horse Spartacus gave us a 45 minute tour of the park with running commentary. Tony is 39 years in America from Sicily, and has been doing carriage rides for most of those years. He is a wealth of knowledge about Central Park, and kept us involved all along the way.

Tony's passengers demanded a photo!

Central Park is the only thing that keeps most New Yorkers sane, I think. It abounds with statues, fountains and lakes.

And you know, even though the city that never sleeps is only a few blocks away, it is almost impossibly quiet in the park!

By then these country bumpkins were getting tired, so we made it back to Grand Central Terminal, figured out how to get our tickets, and boarded the Metro North, Hudson Line, to Poughkeepsie and settled in with a whole bunch of commuters for the long ride home. Then in the car and back to the rv park about 7:30 pm. What a day!

West Point, New York

Tuesday was a catch-up day where we needed to recover from the busy tour of the city of New York and the heat. A late breakfast led us to decide on a visit to the Army training facility at West Point, which is on the Hudson River, just 30 miles from here.

Our first photo op after clearing security was the football field where a sea of grey uniforms cheers on the team.

Inside the Visitors Center, a series of displays provides a glimpse into the life of a cadet during the four year academic, physical, and military program.

Along with photos of several famous graduates.

Cadets are assigned two to a room in barracks buildings. Each cadet is required to adhere to strict organizational guidelines.

A drive around the campus led us to this view of the Hudson River.

A beautiful campus and a rigorous program that makes the best of the best even better.