Familiar Faces and Places

It was now time for a run in to New York City, where Jeff grew up.  As we made our way along the Connecticut shore we stopped first for a night with Carol and Steve Huber, who befriended us on our bike trip up the East Coast in 2008.  Once again they put us up in fine style at their place on a remote lake in Old Lyme, astonishing given how busy they were.  Ten days after we left they celebrated the opening of an exhibit they curated at the Florence Griswold Museum entitled, “With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery From the Connecticut River Valley.”  You can see Carol and Steve and the museum's illustrated description of the exhibit here: http://www.flogris.org/exhibitions/2010/10Needle.html.  It's always fun to see the Hubers, and we deeply appreciated their ability to relax for a few hours from the stress of the coming exhibit to spend an evening with us.

This part of Connecticut has particularly fine stone walls, something you just might have noticed we have a fondness for, so here's yet another stone wall photo taken along one of the country roads we biked down.  We also got to bike past this chain-link wall across the Connecticut River on the Interstate 95 bridge, and to look upriver at part of the tidal estuary where the river is about to join Long Island Sound.

Considering how many people live along the Connecticut shore in quite large cities such as Bridgeport and New Haven, it's amazing how well we got through with the help of Connecticut's bike map, available online.  It took us past these pretty shore homes and within a few blocks of the Henry Whitfield Home, now a state museum as it's the oldest house in CT and the oldest stone house in New England, built in 1639!  It served as a sort of fort for the local community, as you can well imagine from its massive stone walls.

We even got to look out at an island home.  Wouldn't want to commute home that last half-mile on a nasty night, however!

The bike was needing a little TLC, and the College Street Bike Shop in New Haven provided it in a classic crowded bike shop setting.  The mechanic found a washer that had been mushroomed into half the thickness it was supposed to be, something we never would have suspected as the reason why our chain sometimes fell slack and slapped the frame while we coasted.  Thank goodness for competent bike mechanics!

After some 180 miles of riding along the Connecticut shore (actually only a few of which were within good sight of the shore), zigging and zagging to follow less-travelled roads, we reached Greg and Rosella's, Jeff's cousin and his wife in Mamaroneck NY.  Greg was able to take a day off to show us around Westchester, and we drove over to the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, a 1400 acre gem of fields and forests that was given to the state by the Rockefeller family from just part of the fiefdom John D. Rockefeller created a century ago in Westchester County. 

Stone walls in the middle of the forest were reminders that this had been farm land until it was bought up and allowed to return to nature, complete with a hawk sitting in a nearby tree.  We had a terrific walk down old carriage roads built by John D., and actually saw a carriage come by, who knows from where!   Then we did a "take your cousins to work" routine to see Rosella at the greenhouse and nursery where she's worked for the past several decades, work she obviously loves.

Our next stop was a little motel in Ardsley NY called Ardsley Acres, a tongue-in-cheek name if ever there was one for a place wedged in between the New York State Thruway and the Saw Mill River Parkway.  Given the tens of thousands of cars and trucks that whiz by within a half mile either side of this place, it was remarkably peaceful, and it was a quite-affordable place to stay within reach of New York City.  Between Louise's tiredness as she was overcoming a cold and our mutual desire to avoid getting soaked by some rainy days, we ended up staying here five nights.  Some of it was decidely low-key, but we did get out for a 9-mile hike to see the Old Croton Aqueduct.  This was one of the engineering marvels of the 19th century, an aqueduct that was able to supply all of New York City's water needs for four decades, and part of its need until it was retired in 1955.  It took from 1837 to 1848 to complete it, with the first water arriving in the city in 1842.  That was a big enough deal that the current and two former Presidents of the US showed up for the ceremony!  Every two miles or so along the aqueduct is a ventilation tower that also served as an entry point for maintenance, like the one shown to the right above, and the trail atop the aqueduct provides a greenspace path to the city from the Old Croton Reservoir, a distance of 26 miles 'til the aqueduct disappears underneath the busy streets of the Bronx!

We were within walking distance of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, home of Washington Irving of The Tale of the Headless Horseman and of Rip Van Winkle, and sure enough there was a statue of Rip in Irvington, named after -- guess who?  In the distance from downtown Irvington was the Big City, with the George Washington bridge silhouetted above the Hudson just in front of it and the Palisades, towering rock cliffs on the west side of the Hudson, bookending the right side of this view.

With the city this close we had to make the effort to get in.  It took two buses and two subways, taking two hours, to get there, but we eventually stepped off the subway to a spot that was especially dear to Jeff, the American Museum of Natural History.  Starting with 8th grade, he was allowed by his parents to take the 1-hour subway trip from home with his friends sans adults to explore this wonderful museum, and he did so many times.  It has several strengths, one of which is the group of exhibits of natural environments from all over the US and around the world.  Here are two illustrating mountain goats in Alaska and rabbits in Arizona, each one using stuffed animals and preserved trees and plants in the foreground with highly realistic murals for the background.

An even greater strength is the section on human evolution.  With compelling exhibits, humans are compared with other primates and even less evolved animals, such as the exhibit below showing an ape, a homo sapiens, and a Neanderthal, or the one to the right showing chimp, human and frog hands.  Another wonderful exhibit has a young chimpanzee and a boy side-by-side.  The exhibits also do a good job of showing many of the distant relatives who branched off into rather different animals, such as this distinctive Proboscis Monkey.  Altogether a wonderful place to spend a few hours learning much about our world and about our ancestors and distant animal relatives.

Speaking of relatives, that seques into our next adventure, timed to coincide with our visit to the Museum.  As we walked out of the museum we met up with Louise's brother Richard and Louise's cousin Sally.  Louise and Richard's mom and Sally's mom were sisters who had a falling out 45 years ago, and as a byproduct of that, Richard and Louise had not seen or talked with Sally over all those decades.  Earlier this year Richard and Sally reopened the connection, but for Louise this was her first encounter with her first cousin in all those years.  Needless to say there was a lot of catching up to do, which began with a long chat sitting in Central Park alongside the lake, and continued into a cozy Italian restaurant well into the evening.

Alas, it got so late that the subway-and-bus routine was no longer viable, so we took the subway to Grand Central Terminal and caught a Metro North commuter train to Scarsdale, where we thought the odds of finding a taxi at 10 pm were fairly good.  "Fairly" good?  There were a dozen cabs awaiting our train, and we got into cab # 7 as others continued to load passengers as we took off for the 5-mile ride.  It ended up costing $30 to go in style with the Madison-Avenue-chic crowd compared to $7 for the plebian method of the morning, but it was comfortable, safe and quick.  Those count for a lot at 10 pm!

Well those were the last familiar faces for a while, but we still had at least two more familiar places to visit to round out the theme of the past two weeks.  When Jeff was young his paternal grandmother had a postage-stamp-sized cottage near Pine Bush Lake in Ulster County, a few counties distant from the Big City where he grew up.  He hadn't seen it in 50 years and it was so close to the route we had planned that we swung by.  You know, 50 years is a really long time.  The lake was still there, of course, but the sandy beach he spent many days playing on was long gone, along with the stand that sold hot dogs and ice cream treats, and his grandmother's place.  The lake actually looks better in the more natural state seen here, but the memory of those fun times begs to say that there's something to be said for a less natural state, sometimes.

It's been a long time since we've been caught up with the blog, but some rain in the past few days, including today, has let us hang out in libraries nice enough to let us use their computers for hours at a time, and we're happy to post a picture we took just yesterday to close out our familiar faces and places.  It's the Delaware River near Port Jervis NY.  We biked through here 28 months ago as part of our Key West to Canada trip, and the river does look much the same, just a bit swollen from the rain we've had this past week.  The monument off in the distance marks High Point New Jersey, the highest spot in the state at all of 1,803' above sea level, though that's still an impressive elevation for folks in Florida or Rhode Island.

We're now heading down the Delaware Water Gap that we followed northward in 2008, but staying in different towns and taking a slightly different route before heading in a very different direction, toward the Amish country of Lancaster County.  More about that in our next blog entry.

More Islands: Rhode, Block, Long and Shelter

OK, Rhode Island isn't really an island . . . but why exactly is it called Rhode Island?  We'll have to leave that for others to answer.  In any event, we headed there on fast ferry #5 from Martha's Vineyard, landing at Quonset Point, and biked about 25 miles along the RI coast to Point Judith.  A little lighthouse amused us en route to Quonset -- exactly which one of the dozens of bridge spans was it guarding?

On that route along the coast we visited Narragansett, at one time a major competitor with Newport for the spendy crowd.  The renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White designed a grand casino for Narragansett in 1886 but alas a fire in 1900 burned most of the wooden casino, leaving only  the granite section that spanned the road along the coast.  We stopped by as we walked back to our B&B from supper and learned the history from two women who were chaperones for the local high school's senior class, which was having a dance in the grand ballroom upstairs.  And while we were taking the shot of the building and shore the next morning, a local fisherman provided a little interest to our right, though his catch turned out to be too small and was tossed back a few moments later.

Real fishermen call Point Judith home, and we saw dozens and dozens of fishing boats like these as we made our way through the port to the Block Island Ferry.  As we left port we could see Block Island in the distance -- it's that pencil smudge on the horizon above the right-hand breakwater.  This was our first single-hulled ferry, complete with a full load of cars and trucks, but Block Island Sound was calm and it was an easy crossing.  You'll notice the ferry coming the other way as we approached Block Island -- it has a pointed bow, as did ours.  All the cars and trucks have to be loaded by backing them in.  Though we didn't get to experience it, the weather can be pretty rough out there.  Puget Sound it's not.

We had a good location on the island, half a mile from town and overlooking two small freshwater ponds perched on a shelf just above the ocean.  We took a path down to the ponds and had a thirty-minute paddle in a kayak, time enough for two circuits of both ponds and a few pictures!  That's the Spring House Hotel just above us, a nice late-19th century seaside hotel that is doing well in the 21st century.  There was a time when it and many other large hotels on Block Island sat empty in the '70s through the 1990s, but they're "in" again and all seem to be holding their own, even given the fairly short season when tourists in any numbers show up on Block Island.

It's a small island, 30 square miles to Nantucket's 48, the same size as Vashon Island near Seattle.  But Nantucket has 10,000 year-round residents to Block Island's 1,000.  Even in summer there are many fewer folks "on the Block," as they put it locally, as its population generally only triples while Nantucket's quintuples.  Which is part of why it appealed to us more than Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard.  Let's show you a few places we liked.  First was Southeast Light, built in 1875 and moved, if you can imagine it, 360 feet back from the cliff that was disappearing beside it in 1993.  And it's a long way down.  Between the height of the land and of the lighthouse, the lens is 261' above water, and the light can be seen from far out at sea.  By the way, that's Montauk Point on Long Island in the distance, our next destination after our two nights on the Block.

Next to the lighthouse was this small radar station with a very unusual mission -- it's tracking birds!  A company called Deepwater Wind RI wants to build several wind turbines offshore, plus lay an underwater power transmission line to the mainland for days when the wind isn't blowing.  The radar is to see if it's feasible given the avian use of the area.  Many of the locals support the plan in the hopes that it will end Block Island's dubious distinction of having the highest electric rates in the country, since all power is currently generated by diesel that must be shipped in, with no connection to the New England power grid.

Once again we were charmed by stone walls along quiet country roads, all the more enjoyable without the heavy panniers on our bike.  We wore small backpacks to carry our walking shoes and locked up the bike near the North Light, seen here across Sachem Pond, and took the Clayhead Trail for some more dramatic cliff views where Block Island is slowly sliding back into the Atlantic.  One trail took us to the shore where we added our own rock tower to others we found there, and admired the surf hitting a small glacial erratic sitting on the beach.

The trail took us two miles down the coast, then we walked back along yet another stone-wall-lined road, with two more side-trails showing us the other side of the island and this lonely beach house sitting at the edge of the dunes.

As noted above, we really enjoyed  Block Island, and would return here before Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard, even given how interesting those two islands are.  We enjoyed the slower pace and the relative lack of monied pretentiousness.  Oh, it's not cheap on the Block -- everything has to be shipped in, and it's a small captive market -- but it still had more of that getaway charm we found a little elusive on the first two islands.

Actually getting away, however, proved to be an issue.  A major storm was brewing to the southwest of us, and our passenger boat, seen the day before in calmer conditions, was single-hulled. Our route was only 10 or 20 degrees from being parallel to the wave troughs and those troughs were several feet deep, so the boat did a bit of pitching and a whole lot of rolling.  Thankfully lunch stayed down and we arrived in Montauk two hours before the rain, just enough time to get to the motel, get showered and changed and dressed in our rain gear, and into a nearby restaurant two blocks away.  This was the same storm that had just created two small tornados and a "mini-burst" in New York City two hours earlier, but when it hit us it was down to being a heavy downpour with crashing lightning, an exciting and somewhat intimidating spectacle from our corner seats in the restaurant.

Long Island is indeed long, about 118 miles, only 23 across at the widest.  With a population of 7.4 million (2 of its 4 counties are Brooklyn and Queens, parts of New York City), it has more people than many much larger islands, such as Ireland or Hokkaido.  It has a sort of fish shape with two tails at the eastern end, each actually the terminal moraine of one of the glacial advances 10-40,000 years ago.  The more southerly tail is Montauk, and the lighthouse there dates to 1796, the oldest in NY and the fourth-oldest active lighthouse in the country.  Jeff's brother used to drive the 100 miles here from his home in Queens to go birdwatching, since it does stick far out into the Atlantic and attracts birds that typically stay well out to sea.  But neither of us had been here before, so it was exciting to see it at last.  We then rode west 25 miles through a remarkably uncrowded, almost desolate area of sand dunes and salt marshes, into East Hampton.  That town did indeed live up to the reputation of The Hamptons.  We did not actually see too many fancy houses, not because they're not there, but rather because they have such immense grounds, thick hedges, large fences and walls or all of the above, that we could only catch momentary glimpses of a few of these Gatsbyesque getaways, and imagine how much bigger the remaining hidden ones were.

Our next night after Montauk was on Shelter Island, another place that Jeff had heard much about but never seen, as it was where his folks spent a brief honeymoon in 1942.  They certainly didn't spend it where we stayed.  It was one of the more disappointing B&Bs we've stayed at, aggravated considerably by having the least comfortable bed we've encountered out of the 60+ we've slept in so far this trip.  The owner did not fuss when we cancelled the planned second night, apparently aware that the bed in our room left too much to be desired.  We loaded up the bike and saw a few places we had planned to see with an unloaded bike, the most interesting of which was this beach where we watched a sailboat regatta in Gardiner's Bay, the water between those two fishtails of Long Island, Montauk Point (visible in the distance on the right) and Orient Point.

We then took one of these very small ferries off Shelter Island and out to Orient Point, past a snowy egret, a great blue heron and other shore birds, and caught the last of our ten ferries from Orient Point to New London.  Down below is a shot of a sister-ferry to the one we were on coming past some of the rocks that challenge navigation leaving Orient Point.

We'll close with a few shots of New London, starting with the entry to the harbor with the big I-95 bridge at the head of the harbor spanning the Thames River, and the cruise ship Crown Princess just leaving port after a morning's port call for passengers to visit nearby Mystic Seaport.  Ah, that brought back memories of those dozens of port calls we made in 2008 and 2009, described in older posts you may have read back then.

Then our ferry pulled into its slip next to downtown New London, a town with a remarkable number of interesting old buildings, including these four called "Whaleoil Row" that were built by whaling ship captains in the 1840s.

The next morning we rode a bike trail over the Thames on the interstate bridge to Groton CT, home of the USS Nautilus.  This was of course the world's first nuclear-powered sub -- in fact the first large-scale use of controlled nuclear power ever -- built nearby in 1954.  It was in active service until 1980, and since 1986 has been on display here.  Its most famous mission was in 1958 when it reached a spot logged as "90 degrees north latitude, longitude indeterminate" -- the North Pole.

It's open for self-guided walking, or should we say crawling and crunching, through the central part of the boat.  Here are views of the mess and of a bunkroom that slept 12.  The sweaters on our closet shelves have more room than these guys had!  And for storage, what you see is what you got.  Claustrophobes need not apply!

Well, we're back on the continent again after two weeks of island-hopping.  Next up are visits to several friends and family in Connecticut and New York.  We'll bring you the photos in our next entry.