Hudson Heights

Even though "Velsignet" is more than 20 miles from New York City heading north up the Hudson River, we are affected by tides.  In fact, the river is said to be tidal all 154 miles up to the Troy, NY Lock.  Today we’ve prepared ourselves for a 95-mile cruise (alarms went off at 5 a.m. for a sunrise take-off) in this deep, rocky, beautiful Hudson River Valley.  We are expecting about a 2+ mph current against us until 10 am and after some slack time, a 2+ mph current pushing us to our day’s destination at Shady Harbor Marina, New Baltimore NY.  

We left the Atlantic waters and entered New York Harbor on Monday, July 1st. 
There's nothing like the New York City skyline!

We stopped the boat to take photos in front of Lady Liberty.

Entering the Hudson River Valley, we looked back on New York City and reflected on the good times we had with Claudia and Killian, Jamie, Cathy and Tim.  We so enjoyed Central Park, "Beattlejuice,"  "The Cher Show," the Empire State Building, Liberty and Ellis Islands, 911 Memorial, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fraunces Tavern......next time, the Art Museums!

As we enjoyed a late dinner from our sundeck (pistachio-encrusted flounder with a mango sauce) and docked at "Half Moon Bay" marina, we witnessed this spectacular sunset!

Yesterday we rented a car from Enterprise and drove to West Point Military Academy, which was located 30 minutes from Half Moon Bay Marina.  The Welcome Center and Museum were outside the main gates of the Academy and free to the public.

Tom Conneran, husband to Brenda's cousin Carmen, is a 1978 graduate of West Point. 
While Tom attended West Point, Carmen worked and lived in Highland Falls.
The year 1976 was the first year women were accepted into the Academy.  Today enrollment consists of 25% women and 75% men.

We took a bus tour through the Academy's campus.  Our id's were needed to purchase the tour tickets and to get on the bus.  No photos were allowed until we'd passed through the 2 entrance gates of the campus.  Our tour guide was a young man who grew up at West Point (his father was a graduate).  While he provided good basic information on the place, most questions posed to him outside his presentation had the same answer:  "Uh...I don't know."

This is West Point Cadet Chapel.  Its gothic architecture features soaring arches inside.

The Protestant West Point Cadet Chapel is beautiful inside with its stained glass windows, flags and perfectly aligned red hymnals in the pews that seat 1,000 people.  (sorry about the dark photo)  The panels of stained glass were provided by graduating classes of the Academy.  The local stained glass company who provided the windows charged the first class $300 for the pane.  And many years later, what do you think the stained glass company charged the graduating class for their panel to the Chapel?

(Answer:  $300!!!  The stained glass company had strong ties to West Point and considered it an honor to do the windows for the graduating glasses.)

The West Point Cadet Chapel pipe organ has 23,511 individual pipes and is the largest chapel pipe organ in the world. Organ recitals are held at the chapel and according to our tour guide, "uh...they sometimes have organ recitals...I think they had one yesterday."

This photo was taken from in front of the West Point Cadet Chapel looking down on the dormitory buildings and grounds.  There are roughly 4,400 cadets at West Point.  A new class of "Plebes" arrived on campus yesterday, July 1st and by today, July 2nd, the men's heads are sporting a clean, shaven look (women must either keep their hair up or have a style that does not allow their hair to touch their shoulders/collars).

There are many statues and memorials located on the West Point Campus.  This memorial is for the fallen.

West Point wasn't an Army Academy until the early 1800s when Thomas Jefferson was president.  Prior to this, West Point was a fortification that included Fort Arnold.  During the Revolutionary War, a heavy chain was stretched across the Hudson River to keep British ships from capturing lands farther north, thus preventing division of the colonies.  After Benedict Arnold's treason, the Fort was renamed Fort Clinton.

Throughout the grounds at the West Point campus were cannons, most were trophies--taken from our nation's enemies during war.

This is part of the chain that the revolutionists used across the Hudson River to discourage British Ships. 
The cute guy in the white baseball cap in the middle of the photo is our tour guide.

We concluded our time at West Point at the West Point Museum.  

After West Point, we drove north another 35 minutes to The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.  This is a beautiful campus!  Betty Falskow's daughter, Bonnie, is a graduate of the CIA.

Everything about the CIA was beautiful:  The buildings, the grounds, as well as the food!

There are several restaurants on campus that feature different cuisines:  French, Italian, American.  This is a window into the Apple Pie Bakery and cafe.  The cakes were beautiful!

At The Tavern (on campus), we enjoyed drinks (bacon infused bourbon for Mike; a cucumber/mint/ginger/lime sprintzer for Brenda), dinner (fresh pasta with peas and asparagus for Mike; duck tacos for Brenda), and this dessert (a buttermilk panna cotta with rhubarb compote topped with oatmeal crumbles--YUM!!).

Note:  As we were sitting in the Tavern, a family of 3 walk in (2 of them wearing Looper shirts). We didn't know them, had never met them, but we had received an email from them saying they were at the marina and were also going to visit West Point and the CIA.  Brenda says to them, "Chris!" 
Immediately, heads turned and we quickly introduced ourselves and...well, we became friends!

Our timing for visiting the CIA couldn't have been worse.  We arrived after 5 p.m. (one tour each day at 4 p.m.).  Graduation was last night (lots of parents in town; restaurants that take reservations are booked completely solid).  It's the week of July 4th (classes end and students and faculty leave the campus for a 5-day break).

Can you guess what animal this is?

(answer:  a woodchuck or ground hog.  It was interesting that we saw these creatures at West Point AND at the CIA!)

When we got back to the boat last night, Mike put on water and we charted out our voyage for today. 
Our alarms went off at 5:00 a.m.  The rental car was returned to Enterprise.  Garbage taken out.  Engines checked and we departed Half Moon Bay at 5:45 a.m.
The Hudson Valley is breathtaking!  The photo doesn't do justice to the height of the hills and how they jut up and out of the wide river.  

This is West Point from the water!

Occasionally there is an island on the Hudson.  However, when we passed this island, our curiosity was killing us (with the light and dark backgrounds, couldn't get a better picture)!  After some research, we discovered that it is the remnants of the Bannerman Castle on Pollepel Island (Below is a better photo taken from the internet).   Bannerman Castle was carefully and ornately built in the early 1900s by a Scotch patriot named Frank Bannerman VI, who earned his fortune as a buyer of surplus military equipment.  From the very beginning, the castle was to serve as an arsenal to store Bannerman's vast inventory of war weapons and explosives.