So this morning I climbed a mountain…. I thought I’d throw that in right at the outset.
I left the Middletown Holiday Inn at about 9:15 this morning. I was due at the next Holiday Inn (actually a Holiday Inn Express) at Poughkeepsie anytime after 2pm, so I had quite a few hours to kill. My main intention in having the night in Poughkeepsie was to explore the Hudson Valley a bit and one plan was to drive around and explore. Then I saw Bear Mountain State Park, right on the western bank of the Hudson, and not too far from either Middlewood or Poughkeepsie, and it was an easy choice to make that my destination for the day – or at least the morning.
I got to the State Park shortly after 10 o’clock. There’s a big(ish) lake there, on a small plateau above the river; you can walk down to the river; and behind the lake, to the west of the river, is the mountain itself – Bear Mountain. I won’t bother going into all the details of either, here’s a link to a page about the state park.
I got almost to the top of the mountain. I certainly reached a position from where the ground sloped down on all sides, so I did think I’d made it; but then I noticed the Tower about half-a-mile away, and it was slightly higher than where I was standing. By that time it was 1 o’clock, and not only was I hot and tired, I was also rather hungry, so I decided that I’d climbed my mountain, thank you, and it was time to head back to the car. But I’ve posted some images that I took around the park and on the walk up the mountain. One of them is quite interesting – it’s the actually the apparently uninteresting one. If you look at the skyline between the two hillsides very carefully, you can just make out the shape of the Freedom Tower, and other skyscrapers. They’re very faint, but they are there. So from the top (nearly) of Bear Mountain, you can see the towers in Manhattan, nearly 60 miles away. (That particular image is an small crop from a larger shot – it really is a long way to Manhattan from Bear Mountain.)
Now about the “banging my head” bit. When I parked at the Poughkeepsie Holiday Inn I popped the trunk open (there, I speak American) and then leaned forward to get bags out. Unbeknownst to me, the trunk lid had reached the top of its travel and had then started back down, such that the trunk lid edge was just at the exact same spot as my forehead when I leaned forward. Gosh, that hurt; and there was blood. But all OK now.
Later still I went for a meal and drinks at a local diner, the Coyote Grill. The food was OK (though with extremely large portions), the drinks afterwards were excellent. I feel quite relaxed.
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