I’m not even sure how to begin writing this post with everything that’s happened so far this year. I wasn’t even really planning to write anything, but I finally decided at some point I probably will want to look back at this awful year to remember some of the good points, so what the heck.
We originally were planning a trip out west this year – Jon and some buddies were going to run the Rubicon Trail (near Lake Tahoe); I was going to fly out to meet him at the end so we could tour Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, and visit the world’s biggest ball of string. Not kidding about that part, I love campy stuff like that. When COVID hit back in March, we obviously decided to postpone for this year, and it’s just as well – with all the fires in California right now, we likely would have had to cancel regardless.
In the end I decided to take the last week of August off, just to get away from work for awhile. No big plans, but we figured we’d do some mid-week hiking, a few day trips and some relaxation.
We started the week with a 5 mile hike in Fahnestock State Park, near Cold Spring Harbor (that’s in upper Westchester County, for the non-NYers out there). We hiked up Round Hill, there were lovely views towards the Hudson River from the top:
The following day we ran away to the Catskills, with the intention of hiking Kaaterskill Falls. It’s the highest waterfall in NY, and a super popular spot, but we figured on a random Monday, it wouldn’t be too bad. But after a two hour drive, we couldn’t even get into the parking lot, so we bailed.
We ended up driving through the North South Lake campground (really, that’s the name) and hiking up to the site of the old Catskill Mountain House. The view is spectacular – even if I couldn’t get within 10 feet of the edge. Even that far back I wanted to throw up a little. These pictures don’t begin to do justice – it was literally a 270° view out across the entire Hudson Valley:
We ended up hiking for a few miles along the ridge – we stopped briefly at Boulder Rock:
(and really, who names these things? Maybe we should get them a thesaurus.)
Once we came down off the mountain, we ended up driving around a bit. We stopped at an overlook Jon knew about, called Five State Lookout, for another spectacular view:
Although I still can’t work out what the five states are. The best I can do is NY, VT, MA and CT (we’re looking north west), so that fifth state is a mystery.
We then headed down towards the river, and stopped at a little park we found. So cool.
We could see a cool looking castle/house across the river, which I finally realized was Olana. It was the home of Frederick Church, one of the more famous of the Hudson River painters – the art is not really my thing, but I’ve read about the house. We decided to take a drive over and check it out.
After driving across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge – which we both think was the first time we’ve done that – we headed uphill on to the grounds to the house. And just wow:
The view down the river from the house was just as beautiful:
After ~ 9 miles of hiking in two days, we figured a rest was in order for Tuesday.
Wednesday the weather wasn’t the best, so we took a short ride to Paterson, to see the Great Falls. I can’t believe we never knew this was 20 minutes from our house.
Thursday we headed to the NJ State Botanical Garden in Ringwood. We discovered this a few months ago – just happened to pass the sign on our way home from a hike in Sterling Forest. It’s pretty small, but lovely. We had an enjoyable walk around:
We spent the next couple of days close to home. We visited the Reeves Reed Arboretum in Summit (nice, but really tiny, and most of the trails were closed for downed trees), doing some food shopping, having a couple of friends over for a BBQ, and generally enjoying our backyard paradise.
Just to finish things up, we went for one last hike at Stokes State Forest. There was yet another beautiful view at the top, this time looking west towards the Delaware River:
All in all, maybe not the most exciting vacation, but definitely a good break from work. And quality time spent with my husband is always a plus.