Hudson, New York

My poor little blog has been neglected for quite awhile.  We got back home weeks ago and have been busy, busy, busy ever since.  Rich had these nice photos of Hudson but hadn't had time to edit them so I decided to wait, though I suppose I could have gone ahead and posted other stuff.  I couldn't quite work up the motivation, though, so we will just continue in chronological order.  :)

After a few hours of sightseeing, we took Mom back to the B&B for a rest while Rich and I wandered around Hudson.  We love quaint little towns with lots of interesting architecture, local shops, restaurants, beautiful old churches, funny signs, and the friendly feel of a walkable downtown.  We always say we'd love to end up living in a place like this.

 Love her name--do you think she was meant to be a lawyer?

 Yes, as a matter of fact, I actually AM "White Rice."

 Mexican Radio, where we ate one night

Thanks for a lovely stay, Hudson!

Olana State Historic Site

We headed back toward Hudson and found the correct turnoff for Olana, the home of the famous landscape artist Frederic Church.  Church was one of the more well known artists of the Hudson Valley School, a group of painters who were friends with one another and worked in the same style between the 1830's and 1870's.

According to the website www.olana.org, "Paintings of the Hudson River School are characterized by fidelity to nature; clarity of detail; skies sometimes glowing at sunrise or sunset, sometimes shining a sunny, clear blue; nearly invisible brushstrokes; an overall feeling of tranquility; and a presentation of the American landscape as a new Eden in a benevolent universe, blessed by God and providing an uplifting moral influence."

Frederic and Isabel Church were well traveled and envisioned a home that had elements of design they'd seen in Beirut, Jerusalem and Damascus.  The Persian style home encompasses many of the ideas they loved from their trips to the Middle East.

 It is said that Church searched for three years to find the perfect property upon which to build his home.  The website goes on, "Like his painted landscapes,  the physical landscape at Olana is composed of foreground (the house environs), middle ground (the rolling fields and forest), and background (the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains). As in his paintings, the foreground at Olana was a much more detailed landscape, where canopy, understory, and ground plane were created with richly layered plantings of choice native species. Spatially, these plantings – along with natural landforms, the very windows on his house, and the careful layout of miles of carriage drives – were used by Church to reveal exactingly framed vistas of his own property and the wider Hudson River Valley."

 These truly were the most spectacular views we experienced on our trip!  Look at those colors!

 Interesting bench and fence on the property

 Acorn

 Imagine living here and looking out on these sights every day. 

Church died in 1900.  The home remained in the family till 1966, when the Olana Preservation organization and the State of NY combined forces to fight a great-nephew who'd inherited the property with plans to sell all of the original furnishings through Sotheby's.  Apparently, down to the wire, the organization finally raised enough money to purchase the home and everything in it. Thankfully.

You can read much more  about Church and Olana at www.olana.org. There's even a virtual tour of some of the rooms in the house. 

Autumn in the Hudson Valley

 Mom and me relaxing in the living room before breakfast at the B&B

We were too busy enjoying our breakfast to get any food photos, apparently!  It was great!

We asked where we might get some nice fall foliage pics and our host Duncan suggested we visit Olana, not too far from Hudson.  Of course, we managed to miss our turn and kept on driving.  We noticed a sign for the Clermont State Historic Site and decided to take a little detour. 

According to the Friends of Clermont website, "Clermont was built between 1740 and 1750, by Robert Livingston, Jr., on land acquired in 1686 by his father, just a dozen years after New Netherland finally became British New York.  A royal patent secured by Robert Livingston, Sr. granted him the privileges of a manor lord and 160,000 acres, stretching all the way from the Hudson River’s east bank to the border of present day Massachusetts."

"In October 1777, the Revolutionary War arrived on Clermont’s doorstep via a British armada sailing upriver from New York City to provide support for General John Burgoyne’s army, whose march from Canada was foundering north of Albany. That same force had already stormed two forts in the Hudson Highlands and burned Kingston, the first capital of the new New York State. The next target was the riverfront seat of the rebel Livingstons.  Learning of the imminent danger, Margaret Beekman Livingston — the wealthy (in her own right) wife of Clermont’s owner — took action, after refusing the offer of protection from a wounded British soldier recuperating at Clermont. (She steadily declined aid from an enemy of her country.)"

The site continues, "The British courteously gave her time to vacate, which she did, with most of her prized possessions, before burning the house to the foundations. But she returned, and, calling in favors from the governor who she helped to elect, succeeded in rebuilding her grand house — in the middle of the Revolutionary War."

 "Margaret’s son, Robert, is perhaps the most famous Livingston. He administered the oath of office to President George Washington, co-invented the steamboat with Robert Fulton, established the rights of a monopoly that lasted for decades and continued the line of Livingstons which lasted until Honoria (Livingston) McVitty gave the last of the Clermont lands to the state at her death in 2000."

On the road back to Olana, we pulled up behind this bus.  The Bread and Puppet Circus!  My people!  I wanted to know where they were going and what they were doing!  From their website: "The Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City’s Lower East Side. Besides rod-puppet and hand puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first productions were rents, rats, police, and other problems of the neighborhood. More complex theater pieces followed, in which sculpture, music, dance and language were equal partners. The puppets grew bigger and bigger. Annual presentations for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day often included children and adults from the community as participants. Many performances were done in the street. During the Vietnam War, Bread and puppet staged block-long processions and pageants involving hundreds of people."

 Lovely stone church along the road

Road Trip to Hudson, NY

We had a lovely drive from NYC to Hudson, NY. I was hoping the fall colors would be out in all their glory and I was not disappointed. I took a ton of photos through the car window along the way but, in the end, the best ones were those we took when we stopped and wandered around.

A few from the car

Scenic outlook along the Hudson River

We started looking for a place to stop for lunch and pulled off the road in Poughkeepsie.  I'm sure it's a lovely town but we did not see a restaurant that appealed to us (or should I say "to me" since I am the picky one?)

We kept going.

 Maybe we should have gone into The Derby!

I liked this attempt to make the boarded up windows more appealing.  I think maybe Poughkeepsie has seen better days.

 Next stop, Rhinebeck, and I thought The Terrapin looked just right!

It had a pretty extensive menu and for some reason, I was really craving the soul food plate.  Now, I have had some great soul food in my time and I am not sure why I thought a little place in Rhinebeck NY would necessarily be able to match it, but I couldn't resist.  I never eat like this any more--fried chicken, mashed potatoes AND mac & cheese, plus greens!  It was actually pretty darned good, the mac & cheese especially.   Chicken could have used a little more seasoning but I was happy with my choice!

We arrived in Hudson right around 3 PM, check in time at our lovely B&B, the Croff House.  Mom had the only room on the first floor, luckily, because the staircase to the second floor was steep and winding.  One of the owners, Duncan, met us at the door and showed us around, gave us lots of info, and provided us with some dinner suggestions.  He and his partner Russ were very friendly and welcoming. They live in a beautiful Victorian home right next door and popped in several times to check on guests and take care of business.

We've always enjoyed our B&B stays--it's nice to have a common area to sit and read or chat, especially when you have more than one room.  Lots better than having to cram into one bedroom and sit on the beds to talk.  And, of course, the breakfast is usually quite a bonus!

When my friend Susan and I were in NYC many years ago, we ate at a place called Mexican Radio and LOVED it. I remember the atmosphere being super cool and the food delicious. We talked about that place for a long time after.  To my surprise, Mexican Radio has expanded to Hudson so I pretty much insisted that we eat dinner there the first night.  While the restaurant was just as cool, the food was not as fabulous as I remembered.   Funny how it's so hard to duplicate one's experience, or maybe our memories just get embellished over time.  Either way, it was a disappointment and I am sure Mom and Rich wondered why I raved about it so much!

They even advertise that their flan is "the best in the world" and it has been given an award by Latina Magazine.  It was good, but it was not outstanding. At the risk of seeming completely biased, I will say that Rich  makes much better flan, so perhaps I should have the magazine folks come and taste his!  :)

We were tired after dinner so hung out in the living room of the B&B for awhile and then said our "good-nights" with anticipation of the nice breakfast we'd  have in the morning and the sights we'd see in the Hudson Valley over the next couple of days.

Lots of beautiful foliage photos coming up next!

Fall Foliage Train Ride

We set off for the Catskills, which was supposed to be about a 45 minute drive, but ended up being a bit longer due to several wrong turns and unclear directions (none of it could have been our fault, right?!)  Nevertheless, the scenery was gorgeous along the way, and although we missed the train at 12 noon and added another hour to the trip, we arrived just in time for the 1 PM train, which was decorated for autumn.

The train had outside and inside seating and it was a beautiful sunny day.

Unfortunately, the tracks had been damaged by Hurricane Irene so the ride was much shorter than usual.

Still, we enjoyed the ride and the view of the changing leaves.  We also had a little bit of excitement when one of the passengers dropped his expensive phone over the side while taking photos. He told the conductor that he knew exactly where it fell so we stopped on the way back, the passenger got off, and sure enough, came back up with his phone in hand.

Conductors

The train

We then hit the road for New York City, encountering more traffic and delays, and finally arrived around 6 PM for our one night in the Big Apple.