Hudson River Valley, NY

Hudson River Valley



We continued our trek through the Hudson River Valley, which was really beautiful.  It is surrounded by mountains on each side with rolling hills in the center and the Hudson River meandering down the middle.  It is unlike the flat farmland of the Shenandoah Valley and more of a wooded parkland dotted with massive homes and historic small towns.  We crossed the river and drove down to Hyde Park to visit Franklin Delano Roosevelt's summer home and presidential library.  He and Eleanor are both buried there.  We had a nice tour and learned a few things, such as that a part of the early Roosevelt fortune was made on the opium trade with China when it was still legal in America.  We had intended to visit the Vanderbilt estate, which is nearly next door, but our fat RV wouldn't fit through the entrance gates that were built in the 1800's to accommodate horse carriages.  We had also planned to visit the house and grounds of a NY artist from the last century called Olana, but decided to head on to Albany in order to gather some parts to repair the transfer case of my brand new Jeep, which only has 4,000 miles.  After dealing with our first city along this route, we crossed over the Erie Canal and headed into the Adirondacks.  They are more impressive than the Catskills or the Poconos and appear to spread farther and wider than the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  A bit like West Virginia, but much cooler.  We enjoyed our first night in the 50's last night...sleeping was nice.   We found ourselves a decent pine forest RV Campground along a river and may attempt some kayaking for the next day.  One very unfortunate reality for my goal of luxury camping using this RV is that the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation has been given the responsibility of managing all of the campgrounds in both  the Catskills and the Adirondacks, and they have decided that both locations should remain fully natural and primitive.  Not only have they decided to leave the campgrounds without water, electricity of dumping stations, they have actively ripped those things out of the campgrounds that were originally built to include them.  The state campgrounds in all other locations around the state are managed by the NY State Dept. of Parks and Recreation and all include full hook-ups...go figure.  I am sure that the decision to keep this place totally primitive (as if a road, parking space, picnic benches and fire pits is "primitive") has much to do with the politics of supporting hundreds of private campgrounds and resorts scattered all over the region.  Unfortunate for us and excelling our progress toward reaching Montreal sooner.

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