This area of New York along the Hudson River has many small towns (apparently, the more upscale of them refer to themselves as “hamlets” rather than villages or townships). We’ve been seeing a lot of antique stores; antiques on display and antiques for sale. Antiques are everywhere! Until I reached this part of New York, started cycling through this area and talked with people about this area, I had never heard the word “antique” used as a verb. As in “We got out of the city last weekend and went antiquing in the Berkshires.” Not that we’re quite in the Berkshires (that’s in Massachusetts), but it’s still a popular thing to do in this area.

And there’s plenty to see in this area. Notably, there’s the city of Hyde Park. It has the Vanderbilt Mansion and the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Pat actually had the opportunity to visit the Vanderbilt Mansion and wander around its gardens, but all I did was cycle through town. I’ve never seen a town with more streets, parks, and businesses named Roosevelt, Delano, Franklin, FDR, or some combination thereof. On the way to Red Hook today, I passed the Culinary Institute of America. It was in such a grand-looking building that I just had to stop and take a picture. In Rhinebeck, about 5 miles south of Red Hook, there’s the Beekman Arms Inn which claims to be the oldest Inn in the United States. We would have loved to stay there, but it was a few dollars, a few hundred dollars, per night out of our price range.

It was a short day of cycling — just 40 miles from Beacon to Red Hook. We’re going to take a rest day tomorrow to enjoy this part of New York and get ourselves organized for the upcoming events. On Friday, we have a visit to the Bayer HealthCare corporate headquarters in Tarrytown, New York. Next Monday, we’ll be visiting with some kids at the Clara Barton Diabetes Camp in North Oxford, Massachusetts.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 6:29 am and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.