Monthly Archives: April 2021

Side trip to Portsmouth on the Hudson

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The entrance to our hotel.  There were beautiful flowering trees everywhere.

We like to think of ourselves as well-traveled.  I mean, Jen has scratched off almost all the states on her lotto map that are east of the Mississippi and not the deep south.  So it’s a suprise when we find new place relatively nearby that is worth visiting.

Tarrytown, NY, was not on our radar before Nadia signed up for a field hockey clinic/college visit nearby.  Jen did her typical quality research and planning — and, aside from a puzzling lack of in-town accommodations, things looked promising.   There was talk of some walking opportunities and some downtown quaintness.

Through a frustratingly difficult booking process she managed to get us a room in the only hotel (or inn, or B&B, or anything resembling a place we could stay) near the downtown area, and we were ready to go.

It should be noted that this was supposed to be a Jen and Nadia trip. Then only a few days before departure, the school district lifted the quarantine requirements for people traveling out of New England, which meant I could go without having to affect my on-site work schedule.  Jen had to work her magic with the frustrating hotel booking process to extend our stay and double our occupancy.

And then we were ready to go.

And go we did!

From Jen:

Bob had no desire to look down through the grate at the water far below. I didn’t even walk onto the grate.

Those readers of a certain age may remember that Tarrytown was the home of Washington Irving, and the setting for the famous stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”.  I’m considering my daughters’ education incomplete, since both claimed to have never heard of Ichabod Crane or the Headless Horseman.  I tried to play an audio recording of the story on the way down, but Nadia immersed herself in her headphones and Lanie claimed to only understand about half of what the narrator was saying.  (The story was considerably denser, and written in much more flowery language, than I remembered.  It’s very possible that my fond memories come from an eighties animated special or something, rather than the actual text.  Still, it gave me a thrill of nostalgia to hear the long-forgotten but still familiar names: Katrina Van Pelt!  Bram Bones!)

Anyway, we arrived at the Sleepy Hollow Inn and Resort Center late Friday night.  It was not an especially nice hotel, and initially didn’t seem to be in the most appealing area, on a busy four-lane road.  It was very close to the Hudson, but there was no actual view or access, so the benefit from that was limited.  However, it proved to have one major advantage, at least for Bob and I — the hidden ability to walk to lots of cool places.

On Saturday morning we had to drop Nadia off at Pace University for her field hockey clinic. (This proved to be a bit of an adventure, since Apple maps led us to a random intersection in the middle of White Plains rather than the actual campus.  Fortunately we’d allowed plenty of time.) She’s been talking to the coach at Pace and we were hoping to do a tour while there, but with the coronavirus situation found it to be a bit of a prison state.  We all had to fill out an online questionnaire on our phones and display our green check mark to the guard to even be allowed to drive onto the campus.  (Bob accidentally filled out some question wrong and got a red X instead, so he stayed at the hotel with Lanie.)  Nadia had to go straight to the field, and parents were not even allowed to leave the car.  We got a brief driving tour while attempting to find the field, and it did appear to be quite a nice campus.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, after leaving Nadia the other three of us started on our first walking trip — onto the Mario Cuomo (formerly Tappan Zee) bridge.  It was only about half a mile from our hotel, and had a lovely walking/biking path along the side, with frequent viewing areas overlooking the Hudson and Tarrytown.  (It also had nice tall sturdy barriers between the traffic and the walkers, and the walkers and the edge, and so was much

Rip Van Winkle statue in Irvington

less terrifying than my earlier experience walking the Golden Gate bridge with my friend Charles many years ago.)  We didn’t have time to do the whole ~8 mile round trip — plus Lanie had chosen fashion over form and worn shoes that always give her blisters — but we made it more than halfway.

 

After that we took a quick trip into downtown Tarrytown for lunch.  It was a cute, lively downtown — similar to our own Portsmouth.  And we found delicious brick oven pizza by the slice, which was just right for our tight timeframe to pick up Nadia.

In the afternoon, our lame children unaccountably wanted to stay in the hotel room and watch reruns of The Office and Despicable Me for the eight hundreth time, so Bob and I set off without them on our next walking adventure.  We’d seen something called the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail on the map, passing very close to our hotel.  We were picturing some kind of wooded path, but it

A little way after passing through Lyndhurst, we came to

A little pre-dinner wine break on the grounds of our hotel

the road leading to Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s estate.  We walked down to check it out, but unfortunately found that to be closed as well.  The grounds looked to be extensive and again, worth exploring on another day.

Eventually the trail led us into the village center of Irvington, another charming town center with shops and restaurants leading down to the river.  (I always love small towns, like our own Durham, that are safe and accessible enough to have groups of middle school kids wandering around town, buying ice cream and enjoying the nice weather.)  We stopped at an organic juicery for a drink before starting on the log walk back.  (We thought we could make a loop and walk back long the RiverWalk trail, right on the banks of the river, but unfortunately were blocked when we got to the Lyndhurst boundary.)

 

 

For dinner I had contemplated yet another walk along the Tarrytown river path, but even Bob and I were running out of steam by that point.  We settled for driving to a park on the

Couldn’t resist trying this one

river and walking a short way to the picturesque lighthouse before heading into town for dinner.  (Well, most of us did.  Nadia refused to leave the car.)

 

And we weren’t even done yet!  Bob and I wanted to see the bridge lit up at night, so took one more walk a short way out before the walking path closed at 10.  The colorfully-lit bridge reminded us of the Zakim Bridge in Boston.

The next morning we packed up and headed southwest (driving across the bridge this time) to Drew University in New Jersey.  We were able to meet up with an assistant field hockey coach and a couple of players, who gave us a nice tour of the lovely campus (despite the rainy weather).  It seems like a great place — the campus is wooded and beautiful, the adjacent town is quaint and lively, and you can hop on a train and be in Manhattan in 30 minutes.

We had contemplated some other kind of activity in the afternoon, but the weather put a damper on everyone’s spirits and we decided to just have an early lunch and then tackle the five-hour drive home — rejuvenated with the thrill of having actually GONE SOMEWHERE.

 

Trails of Durham – March edition

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It’s part 2 of our quest to walk every Durham/UNH trail in 2021!  You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.  Also, we are enjoying our ten minutes of fame after this was published in the UNH newspaper (see page 6).

Ah, March — my least favorite month.  You feel like it SHOULD be spring, but in New Hampshire it generally isn’t.  It teases you with a warm day here and there and then plunges back into cold that seems even worse by comparison.  It’s either snow and ice or rivers of mud, the ground and trees barren and gloomy.  Winter activities are either not possible or not appealing, but it’s not warm enough for much else.  But this year March gave us a bit of a break, with lots of sunshine and temperatures ranging from a little chilly to very pleasant.  In a year when we’re waiting for spring even more desperately than usual, this was much appreciated.

March 6: Doe Farm with special guest Zoe Pavlik!

We had a special treat for our walk today — Zoe was home from college for the weekend and decided to join us.  In addition to enjoying her company, it also meant we could get a rare non-selfie photo of the two of us!

This was another area where we somehow had never been before, even though it was only a couple of miles from our house.  (We did leave for our Doe Farm to Foss Farm walk from this location, but didn’t actually venture into Doe Farm itself.)  And it was another hidden gem.  The path we followed was bordered by the beautiful frozen river almost the whole way, sometimes on both sides.  We probably could have walked or skied right across the river itself, but with March and slightly warmer weather having arrived, we’ll save that adventure for next year.

 

 

The path started out along the railroad tracks, and we got to see the train go past at one point — maybe the same train Zoe will be taking to Portland tomorrow en route to Orono.  But soon we left the train tracks behind for the quiet of the woods and the river.  We barely saw another soul during our whole 3+ mile walk, other than one man who was there with a chainsaw to clear the path of trees that had fallen during the recent high winds.

We also discovered yet another lovely picnic area, complete with a picnic table and charcoal grill.  We are mentally filing away the locations of all of these areas, and are geared up for lots of outdoor socializing this summer (although we are very much hoping to be in a place where indoor socializing is also a possibility).

March 13 – Wedgewoord/Faculty/Bennett loop

With the warm temperatures earlier this week (sadly, not today), we knew we would be likely to encounter mud anywhere we chose to go.  We decided to do a long loop walk, partially on trails and partially on the roads.  AND we had heard on good authority from our friend Yvon that the new Kenny Rotner bridge is actually, really in place this time, as opposed to how things turned out on our last attempt.

The view from the new bridge

We left from our home in the Wedgewood neighborhood, starting off with our usually walk to the town landing.  From there we headed into the Faculty neighborhood and down to the site of the new bridge on Mill Pond Road.  It is a thing of beauty, and bore us safely across onto Foss Farm Road and the start of the Foss Farm trail system.  We had to start out by retracing our steps from our last time here (the missing bridge incident), but this time were traveling in reverse.  We then took the trail that we’d intended to take last time, but missed, which would lead us to Bennett Road.

We stopped a bit short of actually going onto Bennett itself — not very pedestrian-friendly — and instead walked under the power lines all the way to 108.  (We did this accidentally last time we were walking in this area; this time it was intentional.)  The power lines are built on a series of rolling hills, and we more than once found ourselves in difficulties getting through wet and marshy sections without soaking our feet.  The final culvert, just before hitting Rt. 108, was a particular challenge.  Daisy ended up wet and muddy from her belly downwards.

Anyway, we eventually made it across 108 and onto Longmarsh Road — and from there back to our starting point at home,  two hours and almost 6 miles later.  We were tempted to keep following the power lines down to Cutts and Ffrost, closer to our house — but we deterred by the marshy areas we could see (and also slightly uncertain if getting out would require us to walk through someone’s yard).  We plan to try it eventually, once we’re into a drier season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 21 – Adams’ Point (Perimeter)

Great Bay is considered by many people around here to be the thing we have to drive around to get to the ocean.  That’s when people think of Great Bay at all.

I had this in mind today when I floated my theory about Adams Point being a mini-Mount Desert Island, both in shape and setting.  I was prepared for pushback.

But, really, all we could come up with to separate today’s hike from one in Acadia National Park were:

  • Almost the Precipice Trail

    No mountains here

  • No waves here
  • This place is 3 1/2 hours closer to our house.

All three are valid points, but third one made up for a good portion of the drawbacks of the first two, as we walked Adams Point this weekend.

Great Bay shone in the early-spring morning sun, and it accompanied us the entire way along the perimeter path around the point.  The water perhaps even benefitted from the calmness of the day.  It reflected the clear sky and surrounding forest almost perfectly.

Muddy trails in the field

The paths through the wooded sections unfolded in stone and pine needle carpeting, though the open field segments were quite muddy.

Adams Point is a popular spot, as the full parking lot and the bootprints in the mud can attest, but also like Acadia, it has lots of folds and nooks where people can hide themselves away and look out over the mostly un-molested surface of the bay.  (Two kayakers left from the boat launch as we were walking past, but other than them, two islands, and a bunch of water birds, Great Bay’s surface was unoccupied. )

Almost full parking lot at the boat launch

Sometimes we would glimpse a portion of someone seated among the rocks, but who knows how many people we walked past and didn’t see.  The park did not seem crowded, though both parking lots were close to capacity when we walked past.

There are more trails criss-crossing the interior of the park, but the one drawback of being so close to home is that we are closer to things we have to get back to.  No wandering all morning long like we did in the Tin Mine Conservation area.

We will get to those interior trails on another trip; today we were content to stay near the water and follow the point’s perimeter loop.  And we managed to get home before the breakfast Lanie had prepared for us had gone cold.