Another "not the nicest weather day" on the way north to the Erie Canal. We left Croton-on-Hudson at 7:20 am with far less haze but more clouds. About a half mile of shoreline along the marina had these waterfront condos. BTW I checked and they sell for about $434.00 per square foot... Well, that's a lot cheaper than waterfront condos in New York City.
Today was full of very different sights from nature to history, and the tidal currents were less strong and mainly in our favor.
We saw an abundance of trains with commuter trains on the east bank and freight trains on the west bank. The picture on the left shows a commuter train entering a short tunnel.
Keep in mind that historically the Hudson River Valley and the Mohawk Valley/Erie Canal were very important transportation routes. The route is still very busy today judging by our experience today.
Just to balance things out, here is a freight train and a tug pushing a barge on the other side of the river.
You can now relax! I am sending many other train pictures to Grandson Will via e-mail. That said, I am tempted to add one more train picture showing a freight train emerging from a tunnel under West Point...
There are very few bridges across the Hudson River, but here is a picture (at left) of the Bear Mountain Bridge with a tug and barge. Don't look too closely because you might be barely able to make out a freight train going along the far shore.... We also went under the Tappan Zee bridge, but it is being replaced by a new bridge and is not very pretty at the moment.
We are starting to (trying to) make the transition from mud bottoms everywhere to having to worry about rocky bottoms. The shoreline today was often solid bedrock, and in places the channel was very narrow with steep rock walls.
We passed by the US Military Academy at West Point. I was really (un)impressed by how many of the buildings were literally crammed together. However, the area has steep hills and very little "flat" space, except for some flood plane. Flood plain derives its name from the fact that the area regularly floods (and deposits sediment), and much of the low lying flood plain was utilized for athletic fields.
Speaking of athletics, we got a laugh out of the sign painted (?) on the roof of the basketball arena.
We passed a small cruise ship headed down river. In the summer season there are small cruise ships like this that have routes as far as Chicago. Might be a fun trip someday.
Our trip today ended at Rondout Yacht Basin up Rondout Creek on the west side of the Hudson River. BTW "Rondout" is pronounced "Roundout". I just know that you wanted to know that... Any way you pronounce it, spell check still does not like the spelling.
Going up Rondout Creek we passed the maritime museum, and it had several tugs on display outside. The red one is actually a fireboat, and after dinner we watched it cruise past our dock with a group of passengers on a cruise.
Two more days until we are ready to enter the Erie Canal and head west. There is no official halfway point on our trip, but symbolically, we will turn west into the Erie Canal and go toward Chicago and then go south from Chicago headed back "home".
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