Downstate New York

[Tom&Shelly]

Looks like these will be our last weeks in New York state for some time, and Shelly wanted to see New York City. We did it by going camping downstate, near Poughkeepsie, and taking a train into the city on Saturday and Sunday.

This is a wonderful private park that we stayed at, Sylvan Lake Beach Campground. Looks like we managed to do it on the last warm weekend.




It's a half hour from the nearest train station (New Hamburg) and about a 2 hour train trip each way to Grand Central Terminal, in Manhatten. A very nice campsite, they have a little plateau they use specifically for teardrops, pop-ups, etc. Has electricity.

We took a tour bus around Manhatten, which I don't particularly recommend. They give you earbuds which often didn't work well and which had a lot of idiotic recorded chatter in between a few relevant facts. I don't like earbuds anyway, since they don't work well with my ears, and it was often hard to hear above traffic noises. Oh yes, busses also get stuck in traffic jams in Manhatten!

We also took a tour boat around the island, that we both liked. They take it all the way around when the tide lets them get under low bridges and turn around otherwise, so make sure you find out ahead of time if that's important to you.

We also saw the 9/11 Memorial (didn't have time for the museum) and then the USS Intrepid museum. The Intrepid was a World War II era aircraft carrier, that was hit several times by kamakazie pilots. It later served in Vietnam as well.

On Monday, we drove up to the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, also about a half hour from our campsite. Pretty good history of the Great Depression and World War II from Roosevelt's point of view. We also took the guided tour of the home he grew up in. Much different than, for example, the Eisenhower home at his presidential library! Guess the Roosevelts had a little more money in their family. The home I grew up in is somewhere in between, but since I never quite became president, we're selling it, rather than donating it to the nation. Sorry!

We ate our meals while touring, after the first evening's, which made the trip slightly more pricey, but a lot more convenient. All in all, a great 3 day trip over an unusually warm mid-October weekend.

Tom

PS--If you're from Manhatten, what I call "downstate" you would call "upstate". You're wrong, but it's not a big deal!

[TimC]

Nice New York summary. You guys really get around.

[tony.latham]

and Shelly wanted to see New York City.

Did she get knocked in the head??? (Asking for Steph.)

Tony

[Tom&Shelly]

and Shelly wanted to see New York City.

Did she get knocked in the head??? (Asking for Steph.)

Tony

I managed to live in Upstate New York for 18 years, not counting frequent visits back since, and never felt inclined to see New York City. Now, Shelly has seen it once and she says that's enough, and that's good enough for me!

(Not sure yet what we'll do next year, but coloring in the Northwest US may feature!)

Tom

[tony.latham]

and that's good enough for me!

Tony

[bdosborn]

My wife was born in Poughkeepsie as was Chris Vadala.

Bruce

[Tom&Shelly]

My wife was born in Poughkeepsie as was Chris Vadala.

Bruce

Cool! Poughkeepsie is, and was, as you know, a big IBM* town, even more so in the 1970's. So was Endicott NY, where I grew up, so we knew lots of families that transferred from one to the other. Nice area with lots of rural land, despite being a short commuter train ride from NYC.

Tom

* IBM is an acronym for "I'm Being Moved"

[bdosborn]

Cool! Poughkeepsie is, and was, as you know, a big IBM* town, even more so in the 1970's.

Yup, Jean's Dad was transferred to Boulder, CO in the 1970's by IBM when they opened the new facility there. He later went to Storage Tech and worked on tape storage. They still have one of the backup machines he worked on in the data center at NCAR Boulder.
Bruce

[Modstock]

I have a cousin who sold his ferrier business moved across the country and bought a dairy farm in NY.
Didnt last long, just a few years . Couldn't produce enough milk to make it profitable. I was able to buy a gallon of it here in Utah before it ended. Good stuff.
They even reenacted the farmer and wife picture. Hard long work they put into that place, 14+ hr work days.

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[Tom&Shelly]

I have a cousin who sold his ferrier business moved across the country and bought a dairy farm in NY.
Didnt last long, just a few years . Couldn't produce enough milk to make it profitable. I was able to buy a gallon of it here in Utah before it ended. Good stuff.
They even reenacted the farmer and wife picture. Hard long work they put into that place, 14+ hr work days.

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My Dad bought the land for our house from a farm family who moved into a small run-down (when they bought it) farm in the 1920's. They got electricity with the rural electrification act in the mid 30's which, they said, made life a lot easier, though still hard by my standards. (Would have cost them $30/pole so they had to pass until it was subsidized.) They were mostly retired by the time I was old enough to know what they were doing, but his brother still sold milk to Crowley's when I was growing up. It was folks like that who pushed my brother, sister, me, and all our friends to go to college so we could make easier livings.

IBM built a plant in rural Owego NY in 1957, which is why my Dad moved there. Many other farmers in the area thought it was a good idea to sell some of their land for the IBMers moving in and starting families. Now there are many houses from the era with very large, mostly unused, back yards that used to be fields. I thought the farms were going away entirely, but it seems much land is still being farmed, though I suspect by larger companies with fewer farmers living on the land.

Tom

[Modstock]

One mistake my cousin made was buying it on a "intrest only loan" and so when they went to automize things and expand, the bank said no to thier loan request.
Now they can't go back to Idaho and ferrier cause some weird reason or rules. So they had to start all over again. I think they are breeding dogs now.

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