For the long Labor Day weekend Seth and I decided to get away from the city and head slightly more upstate to Poughkeepsie! I've never really been in this area before so it was certainly an adventure. Friday night we took the train to Seth's parents' house and had dinner with them and stayed the night. Then Saturday morning we left on the real part of our adventure.
First stop, West Point! It was actually really fascinating to learn about the history and see the campus. At first we thought we would just see the museum, but it turned out that they do 1 hour tours of campus so we did that too. I'm really glad we did the tour. The museum was nice, but without doing the tour there's no way to see the actual campus and learn about the history.
One thing about a military campus, no litter anywhere. It's probably the cleanest college campus you could ever find! It was also gorgeous and had a really interesting history since it's both a military base and a four year university.
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| Yep...there's a tank at the entrance. |
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| We didn't get to ride this bus...our tour was on a yellow school bus. Oh well |
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| On the bus! |
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| View from the bus |
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| Professor's row - apparently all the professors live in these houses |
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| The parade ground |
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| Fun fact - no one except cadets and graduates get to walk on the parade ground |
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| A look at Trophy Point - it houses trophies from all major American wars |
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| The amphitheater on campus. They were setting up for a show |
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This is why Washington chose to put West Point here
This narrow point is easy to defend |
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| The Civil War monument |
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| Old cars and tanks from the museum |
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| Shell of an atomic weapon |
After a nice lunch at a diner nearby, we headed to the hotel. Then we turned around and went right back out to see the little town of Beacon. We walked along their cute main street. We tried to go to the Doctor Who restaurant but they didn't seem particularly interested in seating us so we left again. Hopefully they'll be able to get their act together and succeed.
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| The Doctor Who restaurant |
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| Inside the Doctor Who restaurant |
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| The Beacon theatre district aka this one theatre |
On Sunday we headed back out to check out FDR's house. We saw a lot of history! I don't think I ever realized just how influential the Roosevelts were to our history. FDR basically invented labor laws, and welfare and Eleanor Roosevelt basically invented the UN.
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| The visitor's center |
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| There was a large map on the floor to let you know what all the buildings are |
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| Seth - hanging out with FDR and Eleanor |
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| Me - doing the same |
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| FDR - are you paying attention to me? |
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| FDR's family home |
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| The garden on the property |
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| FDR and Eleanor's grave site |
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I really liked this statue that is made from parts of
the Berlin wall |
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| Eleanor Roosevelt's credit cards. I thought this was so cool! |
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FDR's fancy car that he suited out so he could control the pedals with
his hands. Ingenious! |
After the tour of the main house and then a walk through the museum and presidential archive, we drove up to Val Kil Cottage which was Eleanor's retreat. Unfortunately the tours were sold out for the day so we looked at the small museum about the building, and then headed over to the Vanderbilt mansion.
The Vanderbilt Mansion was built by Frederick Vanderbilt, the 3rd boy in the family. It was really fascinating because it ended up being more or less a history of the rise and fall of the gilded age of our history. It was also interesting comparing Vanderbilt with FDR as both were quite rich, but the Roosevelts were considered old money while the Vanderbilts were new money. So they didn't quite think of each other as being the same class.
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| This was considered a tame mansion in these days |
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| I just really liked the piano in this room |
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| Outside on the estate |
After going back to the hotel to relax for a bit, we headed out to the Walkway over the Hudson, which is one of the top things to see in Poughkeepsie. It is an old railway bridge that was converted to a walking bridge and stretches out over the Hudson. It was fabulous to see, with really great views. Unfortunately we only made it a little less than halfway across when we had to turn back. It had started to thunder storm and apparently when that happens they kick everyone off the bridge because it gets hazardous with lightening.
We stayed and swam in the hotel Sunday night since it was storming so badly outside and then on Monday morning, headed back to the city!
All in all, a very fun adventure where I even learned a little bit!
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