SAUGERTIES, NY TO RAWSONVILLE, VT--Monday, June 8, 2015

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Saugerties, NY to Rawsonville, VT--Monday, June 8^th

Rip Van Winkle Campground, Saugerties, NY.

We drove back through the town of Saugerties and took a better look at the differently painted themed toy peddle cars placed every so often along the main street. I surmised that they were placed in conjunction with a large antique car show being held this week, but otherwise we had no information about them.

Following the direction signs, we found the trail for our walk to the Saugerties Lighthouse. A lot of flowers were blooming along the pathway—wild iris, wild rose bushes, and many we couldn’t ID. Both of us wore our rubber clogs, unfortunately, and the trail was covered in places by a multitude of hard, black, 1.5x1.5 inches, seed pod-type plant material with 3-4 very sharp thorny points on them. Stepping on them brought pain as the thorn point went right through the clog and into the foot. Valerie had to pull them out when I stepped on one as they stuck in the rubber and wouldn’t shake loose. It wasn’t at all a pleasant ½ mile walk with the mud, rain, wind, cold, and thorns. Ouch! Ouch!

The sign at the light house said, “The stone, whale oil lit, Saugerties Lighthouse was built in 1838 at the mouth of Esopus Creek that flows into the Hudson River. In 1869, the red brick lighthouse was completed with a sixth-order Fresnel lens and after being automated in 1954 and the living quarters vacated, it fell into ruin. After protest, it wasn’t demolished and in 1979 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was rescued by a non-profit Conservancy in 1985. After 4 years of restoration, it was made operational in 1990.”

If you want to, and have the money, you can spend the night in the lighthouse—of course you have to walk into it carrying your suitcase, backpack, or whatever. It was worth the walk to see the lighthouse, just pick a nice day and wear hard-soled shoes to do so. On the walk back, we think we saw the plant the seed pod came from and, surprisingly, it was some sort of grass.

Continued driving north up 9 (W now), toward Albany. As we crossed into the suburb of Delmar, I realized that this was the community that a Cupertino, California neighbor of ours, Armond Irwin had settled in, becoming President of a publishing company here. We exchanged Christmas cards until some years ago, late 90’s I think, when we learned sadly, that he died of cancer. We still correspond with his brother, Millard, who was in Valerie’s classes, and lives in Carson City, Nevada.

We drove through Albany, New York’s State capitol, and I was not at all impressed with the run down brownstones we drove through. We then crossed over the Hudson River on highway 7 that became highway 9 when we crossed the border into Vermont. Along 9, we found another diner for lunch. They also had a senior special menu and served enough food for us to take a “doggy bag” into Rosie II for dinner that night. Love these diners!

At some point along the way, we had pulled out the book listing all the Army Corp of Engineer campgrounds. There was only one in the whole of New England, and it was located closer to Rawsonville although, the book gave the location as near the community of Jamaica. So, at the town of Wilmington, we headed north on highway 100/30 that was a scenic byway along the eastern side of the Green Mountain Range—remember your American History and the Green Mountain Boys—these are the mountains the men came from. The narrow, windy, road mainly followed a very, very, rocky creek and shortly we were in big time ski country. Resorts looking Alpine-ish, ski apparel shops, rental equipment places, and multiple ski lifts on the mountain sides all gave us this clue.

When we drove through the tiny community of Jamaica we saw absolutely no sign for the campground and so we continued on. When we came to the fork of highway 30 and 100, we pulled into a gas station to ask for directions. The woman sent us to a dirt road directly across the street from the station. No sign on the entrance to this road either, but we took it. We slowly made our way down the road until it dead-ended and still saw no indication of any campground only residences here and there along the creek.

We did see a sign where a side road used to cross the creek, which said that the bridge was out. Turned around when it dead-ended. Thankfully there was a man walking a dog who, when asked, told us to continue the way we were headed, turn right when we got back to the road we were on, and then at the fork, take highway 100 and we should see the signs shortly. He said that the road, where the bridge was out, used to connect to the campground from the backside. Why wouldn’t the first person know this?? The bridge has been out long enough for the state to erect a sign.

Anyway, finally found the place, Winhall Brook Campground, and settled into a spot on the grass right across from the creek we had been following since leaving highway 9. Very few people in the campground.

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