We left Niagara Falls (pic from hotel room on the left) before 8 am, after a light hotel breakfast, towards Buffalo on I 90 and on the toll road, called NY Thruway (which cost us almost $ 15 toll) on to Mohawk. Since we only took two brief pit stops and made good time, we decided to scratch off one other destination on our bucket list: Cooperstown.
Though we had to take back-roads and made slower progress, SR 28 eventually brought us into this town, which became famous for two things: the author James Fenimore Cooper and his "Leatherstocking" ("Lederstrumpf") and the Baseball Hall of Fame. The location of the town is beautiful, surrounded by lakes and all green, and in the sun the trees were just gorgeous, all in red and orange. We parked on Main Street (pic) and checked out what's there, noting that there is no single remembrance of Cooper and Leatherstocking in town, not even a bar or café by this name! In this regard we were terribly disappointed. We peeked into the Baseball Hall of Fame (pics below), but couldn't visit long, since we were expected in Poughkeepsie at 4 pm at the latest and still had about 150 mi. to drive.
The drive on curvy SR 80 along "Glimmerglass Lake", how Otsego Lake is nicknamed after James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales – at least this name sticked – was beautiful, but, unfortunately, didn't have time to stop.
On to Hwy. 20 into Albany, New York State's capital. Driving along the west bank of the Hudson River we finally crossed the crazy-busy FDR Mid-Hudson Bridge (pic) into Poughkeepsie and, fortunately, didn't get lost and found the hotel immediately, where our contact from Upstate NY was already waiting for us. 400 mi/640 km driven, we left the hotel again after 15 minutes, to walk the famous "Walkway Over the Hudson" State Historic Park, the world's longest elevated pedestrian bridge, spanning 1.3 mi/2 km over the Hudson River, 212 ft (65 m) high up. Opened in 2009, the park is popular for pedestrians, hikers, joggers, bicyclists. Originally it was a railroad bridge, built in the late 19th century to link New York and New England.
On to the town of Rhinebeck then, 17 mi (27 km) south of Poughkeepsie, the Dutchess County seat. 1686 a group of Dutch, led by Henry Beekman, had crossed the river and bought land from the local Iroquois nation. In 1715, Beekman's son brought in 35 German Palatines (Pfälzer) who had fled religious persecution at home and that's where the Germans come into the mix. The village grew, churches and houses were built and
today, the town's historic district is one of the best examples of the early use of the Gothic Revival style in residential architecture.
Terrapin Restaurant, situated in a historic, renovated church building, the former First Baptist church of Rhinebeck from circa 1825, was a unique place: great meals (steak/beef short rip) served under cathedral ceilings and church windows... Back at our Residence Inn 3-bedroom-apartment in the outskirts of Poughkeepsie around 9 pm, working still till 11 pm.
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