Friday, July 13, 2012

Well, the good news is...nothing bad happened today.  Weather was perfect and the attractions were worthwhile.

I left Norwich this morning and headed through Oneonta to Kingston, NY and the Hudson River Maritime Museum.  The museum is located in Kingston at Rondout Landing on the Hudson River itself.  Kingston was once a ship-building and shipping terminus and much of the immediate area consists of early-19th century buildings:

The museum itself was interesting, with a lot of information and artifacts dating over the last century and a half.  There was a big excursion-boat business up until around 1960 and a number of boats made day trips from New York City up the Hudson to Kingston. Prior to the building of bridges across the Hudson in the early 20th century, there were a number of ferries working a number of locations up and down the river.  This is a model of one of them:

Anyway, the museum was interesting and the surrounding area was very scenic.  In the picture below you can see a tugboat way in the background and a sailboat coming into dock behind the museum.  The land mass to the right is a small island;  the river is probably a half-mile wide at this point:

After leaving Kingston, I headed across the river to Rhinebeck, NY and the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.  A project of a local aircraft-preservation society, the aerodrome is home to a large number of pre-1930 aircraft and is complete with restoration facilities.  On weekends during the summer, they hold air shows featuring the old planes.  Here a a couple shots I took today:

Above was inside one of the hangers.

This is a real Fokker Tri-Plane, the type flown by Von Richthofen the Red Baron.

Above is a replica of the first Wright Flyer that was flown on the 100th anniversary of flight in 2003.

This was interesting.  The airfield itself is not flat.  I goes uphill on one end and then downhill pretty steeply on the other end.  I think they take off downhill and land uphill.  The plane above was facing the steep part of the uphill slope.

Anyway, very interesting and I think the air shows on weekends would be worth the trip themselves.

I left Rhinebeck, went back across the river, and down US9W to Newburgh, NY and the "Motorcyclepedia" motorcycle museum.  This was really fabulous and even included one example from each year that Indian motorcycles were manufactured from 1901 to 1953.  Those are really rare.  The two bikes above are 4-cylinder Ace motorcycles from the late 1920's and were in better-than-new condition.

In the foreground above is a "Flying Merkel" with and early Harley and an early "Thor" in the background.

And, finally, this is an "Ariel", a British bike from the 1930's with a sidecar attached.  Interestingly, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) was killed in 1935 when he wrecked his Ariel.

Had a great day today.  Heading to West Point in the morning and then to Danbury, CT for a couple other museums.

Miles today:  187
Total:  588