Day 1 & 2: Houston to LGA to Hudson, NY to Brattleboro, VT

We begin with a flight, something we haven’t done on one of these exploratory road trips. Because we are going so far, we are maximizing our time in the northeast. So we flew to Laguardia in New York City, and headed north up the Hudson River valley to Hudson, NY. Eventually we covered the Maine coast, New Brunswick, &, Quebec in Canada and back down to Newport, RI. Follow along!

For the first time, we flew to start one of these trips. This was to Laguardia. We got a rent car and got out of New York pretty easily. North up the Hudson River. When we went outside at the airport we thought it smelled funny, maybe fumes of some kind, but quickly realized that is was the smell of wood burning - from the Canadian wildfires.

On the way up to our first night’s destination at Hudson, NY we stopped at Hyde Park to see the Franklin D. Roosevelt home and presidential library. All of that exceeded our expectations and were glad we stopped. Across the highway on the way out, we saw this drive-in movie theater. The “office” looks very much like it will open tomorrow but a look at their web site shows it closed for good the month before.

As you see, the Duchess County Fair isn’t until September. We hoped to be able to drop in on fairs like these on this trip but I think they're all going to be later in the summer.

Day 2…

Our visit to Hudson was brief, but we had a good hotel and down the street was Kitty’s, where we dropped in for a very good breakfast which we ate outside in the cool (but still hazy) air. They sold these great colored dice. I bought four.

This is the house at Olana, the estate of Frederick Church, one of the principal artists of the Hudson River School. It wasn’t an actual “school”, but rather a movement of a style of landscape painting that went on in the mid 1800s and centered around the Hudson River valley in New York. Church built this house and sculpted and landscaped the 250 acres here. His story is quite interesting. Another exceeding of expectations.

From Olana near Hudson, NY, we drove north to Troy, NY to have lunch at Famous Lunch. It was recommended by a good friend that we get the little hot dogs here. The food was great and the experience was too. Melina, the owner’s daughter waited on us and she was delightful. Her father and her are 3rd and 4th generation there. There were a few colorful characters there too, long time customers, and a couple of them stopped by our booth to visit and ask how we liked it.

Melina with a large order of these small hot dogs.

This regular was a great guy and he came and visited with us.

Quieter Famous Lunch patrons.

We got the special. It was perfect.

We headed east into Massachusetts. We drove through Williamstown and into North Adams, where we dropped into MASS MoCA, a contemporary art museum, built in an old factory that was made up of many buildings sprawling along the river. It was another great visit.

This is an extremely large, watercolor painting (2nd largest in world) of the warehouse space that is directly behind it, pre renovation. And an example of what some of the spaces in the museum felt like.

There were several pieces here by James Turrell.

MASS MoCA

MASS MoCA. Not sure if this was intentional art or not, but it sure looks like it, as it works with that overspray of paint in what looked like a working area.

The Hoosic River splits and in parallel frames the old factory buildings of MASS MoCA on two sides.

We left MASS MoCA late in the day and moved on to Brattleboro, Vermont, where we stayed for the night. It was a full and incredibly great day.