Aug 6, 2024 – Castleton-On-Hudson, NY
Rain again this morning. Got on the road early since we had a five-hour drive to our next destination. We had breakfast in the town of Somersworth, just across the border into New Hampshire. The restaurant was a converted railroad station called Breakfast Station #319. Their online reviews said their food preparation was excellent. We agree!
Next stop was the Against the Grain Bakery factory store, just across the Connecticut River and the next state border in Brattleboro, VT. We’d stopped there before several years ago. They are a prominent, dedicated gluten free bakery with distribution throughout the Mid Atlantic region. Obviously, Sandy walked out with a number of baked treats.
We arrived at New York’s Schodack Island State Park where we had a two night reservation. The park occupies a seven mile long island off the eastern shore of the Hudson River just south of Albany in Castleton-on-the-Hudson. The location is just about two hours north of Croton-On-Hudson where we stayed on another Hudson River island on our first night of this trip. It’s a nice enough area but not nearly as tony as the small towns along that southern portion of the river.
Aug 7, 2024 – Castleton-On-Hudson, NY
Hurricane Debbie was, at the time, beginning its march north through the Mid Atlantic. We’d had enough of rain and didn’t want to be in the center of the storm’s path. So we decided to head west to get west of the storm’s predicted track. We made reservations for the next few nights at Four Mile Creek, Youngstown, NY, which is near Niagara Falls.
Meanwhile, we wanted to bike a bit of the Erie Canalway Trail. The trail is a 360-mile multi-use path that runs alongside the canal from Albany to Buffalo. So we headed across the river and north of Albany to Cohoes to check out the trail.
What we first found in Cohoes, though, were a number of beautifully restored and repurposed old factory buildings.
They used power from the Mohawk River near the site of a large waterfall. The water power is now used to operate a hydroelectric plant but the waterfall is still impressive. It can be viewed from both Overlook Park and Falls View Park.
The easiest place to pick up the Mohawk Hudson Bike Trail was close by in town. We followed the trail for a number of miles to the I-87 underpass but decided it wasn’t the idyllic canal path we sought.
Turning around, we loaded the bikes back on the car and headed to Niskayuna Lions Park where we picked up the trail again. Ahh, much better. This section of the trail was right next to the canal.
We’d only ridden a few miles when we came upon what was a surprise to us. That surprise was Lock #7 of the canal. Although the canal is mostly used by recreational boaters these days, it is still fully operational for both recreational and commercial traffic. One of the cool things is that you can pretty much walk all around the lock. The operational pieces are carefully fenced and locked but you can poke your nose almost everywhere else.
We’d walked down to a park-like area at the end of the lock when we heard noises that sounded like they were going to lock someone through. Indeed they were and we watched the whole operation as a 14 foot fishing boat transited the lock. Impressed that they’d operate the lock for such a small vessel, the operators said they even operate for canoes and kayaks! Back at the campground we had burgers, fresh corn and tomatoes for dinner. And, later that evening the rain started again.