Lyndhurst Castle and Sunnyside, NY 7/18/10

After church, we took the Metro North train up to Tarrytown. It's about a 45 minute train ride. We took a taxi to the Lyndhurst Castle, a Gothic revival mansion. It was built in 1842 by Alexander Jackson Davis on 67 acres that faces the Hudson River. There were three families that lived there; and the last one is the well known Jay Gould, railroad magnate and Wall St. tycoon (hudsonvalley.org).

It was originally called "Knoll" but after the second owner bought it, George Merritt, he renamed it Lyndenhurst for the Linden trees that were planted. Jay Gould purchased the home in 1880 for his summer home.

Now the home was sold to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

We received a tour. The inside is not as big as it appears on the outside.

We then wanted to walk to Sunnyside where Washington Irving had his cottage. We walked along the Croton Aqueduct Trail, which was a little over one mile. It was a shady path, with trees lining each side; which kept us nice and cool.

Walked right to the entrance of the Cottage site. There was a large garden near a cottage where the gardener lived. This is where they grew most of their food. This domicile is more our style!

We received a tour of Washington Irving's cottage and this tour guide was more informative and personable. Washington's parents were great admirers of George Washington, hence the name of their second son. He never married and never had any children, but was a family man and enjoyed having his brother, Ebenezer and his five daughters. Irving's pen name was Diedrich Knickerbocker and this is where New York's basketball team got it's name, the Knicks (see www.hudsonvalley.org). Learn something new every day.

One of his famous works, Legend of Sleepy Hollow gave fame to the town nearby, Sleepy Hollow.

We continued walking to the town of Irvington. A quaint, small town. Not too many stores. We were famished, since we had not eaten since breakfast. We were hot and sweaty with no car; I'm sure we looked like vagabonds to the locals.

We were on a mission to find a good restaurant (I was ready to settle, but Todd likes to check out EVERY single restaurant to find the best. Usually, I appreciate this, but when you're starving, a hot dog stand would do). We pass two locals and I ask them if they live there. One of them said yes and I asked her where a good place to eat would be (saving time to walk past each restaurant...) she gave us a little guided tour and mentioned several eateries (let's cut to the chase lady, just give us your best and nobody gets hurt. Fortunately, I didn't say this out loud). She guided us to a hidden jewel with a view of the river, called Red Hat. It was a wonderful choice. We got seated outside under an umbrella. They served us two glasses of cold water out of a tall glass and water has never tasted so good. Then they brought bread and we devoured all of it.

The Red Hat was built in an old warehouse that would make greenhouses. It provided, we are guessing, the huge greenhouse that was built for the Lyndhurst estate.

Todd ordered pork chops, which was excellent, especially the creamed corn. The corn was nothing like we've tasted before.

GRILLED DOUBLE CUT BERKSHIRE PORK CHOP
- Snake River Farm heirloom pork
Wild Hive Mills organic corn polenta, sugar snap peas,
caper-currant compote, pommery mustard jus vinaigrette

I ordered the Goat Cheese, which was also excellent. It was a smaller portion so I had to help Todd with his pork chops!
CRISPY GOAT CHEESE BEIGNET
Coach Farm goat cheese, roasted beets, smoked applewood bacon,
greens, shallot-caraway vinaigrette

Delicious! We were so grateful for the local Irvingite to direct us toward this cuisine haven.

Bon Appetit!

Sandy Hook Beach Sat. July 17th

Friday night we decided to go to the beach on Saturday. We try to go to the beach at least once a weekend. Todd mentioned Sandy Hook, NJ.
We took a ferry from Wall St. dock and rode it to Sandy Hook. It took about 45 minutes. It was an incredible ride with a full view of the harbor. It was beautiful.
Sandy Hook is an old military site with housing for the officers. The housing is used now for the park's staff. The north part of the peninsula is used by the Coast Guard.
There was a shuttle bus to take passengers to the other side of the peninsula where the beach was. We decided to walk, it being a walkable distance. We could see so much more by walking. We came across old proofing sites, where the military would test artillery. We love to see old ruins and find out what they were used for.
We saw two batteries; one that was sunken in to the ground (so the enemy couldn't see when they were being fired at) and one huge battery that looked like an old, warehouse made out of iron.
The beach was one of the widest beaches we've seen. It took half a day to walk across.
The waves were mild and not very much fun to ride. The heat was dry and extreme; we felt as if we were on the Sahara desert. I could imagine camels walking past us.
We couldn't take much more of the heat on the beach so what did we do? We explored in the heat! We walked to the lighthouse, which is the oldest lighthouse in the nation.
We continued exploring the island; walked pass old barrack houses and an old battery.

Rode the ferry back to lower Manhattan. Ate at a delicious Italian restaurant, Harry's Italian on Gold St. Todd ordered Veal and I ordered Fettuccini with prochetta. It was fabulous.

Anniversary weekend July 9th-Greenport, NY

We had debated what to do for our 4th Anniversary weekend. Thursday evening, we bounced ideas around on where to go.

Friday afternoon I did a little bit of research of which Bed and Breakfast to stay at in the Greenport, NY area. One caught my eye- Ruby's Cove. I liked the looks of the web-site; I had a good intuition about it. I called and left a message. The voicemail stated that there was one room available and whoever called first, would get the room. I left a message and let it go. If it was right, it would work out, if not, something else would. I headed to the reading room and got a call from the innkeeper, Donna, asking if we still wanted a room! It's amazing what happens when you let go. I called Todd real quick and he thought it would work. I called her back and reserved the room. It was now 4:00 and the train left at 5:20! I still had to go home and pack.

I rushed home, threw stuff together, ran to the bus stop and caught the bus. I arrived at the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn shortly after 5:00. Todd joined me shortly after and we got on the train.

The train ride was scenic-lush and green; we enjoyed watching the scenery pass by and feel the rhythmic rock of the train lulling us to relaxation.

We arrived and the innkeeper had insisted to pick us up (I had said several times politely that we would enjoy walking but I didn't want to be ungracious). She picked us up; I could tell right away we were going to hit it off. She was spunky, enthusiastic and had a good sense of humor. We enjoyed listening to her as she gave us a quick tour of the town.

It looked like there were quite a few good restaurants to choose from. We had dinner reservations at the Frisky Oyster, which the innkeeper said was a good choice. We unloaded our stuff and then walked to the restaurant. It was casual could be a bit formal atmosphere. Where we felt comfortable in our summer attire of shorts.

Todd ordered the Steak Tar Tar and I ordred the squash stuffed with lobster. We shared sweet corn soup which was really good. My dish was different, but I enjoy trying new things. I had cherry vanilla hot tea, which was tastey. For dessert we shared the key lime pie (which the one my Mom makes is much better-but I didn't tell our waiter that).

It had stared to rain-so we walked back in the rain! Which was an adventure.

We sat on the front porch and chatted. We like front porches.

In the morning, the shades were pulled, making the room darker making it seem like it was a lot earlier than it was. We could hear the rain pitter patter outside our windows. We rested and listened to the rain. It was already 8:30! Which I hardly ever sleep in that late.

The innkeeper cooked everyone breakfast and it was scrumptious! She made scrambled eggs with fetta cheese and mushrooms, fresh asparagus, a platter of fresh fruit and bagels with lottes. Yum! She sat down with us and chatted (she's pretty chatty-but fun to talk to).

First, we decided to walk through all of the town, which took us a couple of hours to see everything. It started pouring so we hung out at a second hand shop (we just happened to be at a second hand shop. I was really disappointed...).

Everyone in the town was friendly; it seemed more friendly than usual compared to other small towns.

We loved the town. It had it's own individuality and quirkiness. It felt the towns people could express their own individuality and other towns people were accepting and embracing the uniqueness. There were many quirky stores (which I lovvvvvee). There seemed to be more unique stores than usual. Poor Todd. I guess he doesn't mind going through them all.

We walked to the Lighthouse Museum and we enjoyed going through that.

We went back to the B&B and borrowed the bikes the innkeeper loans for free. We rode outside of town quite a ways. We rode through E. Marion and Orient.

We saw a lavendar farm! That was incredible. A whole field full of lavendar. We pulled over to take a look at the lavendar gift shop. What a treat.

It was late afternoon and we were feeling pretty hungry, so after riding through Orient small town, we stopped at a old fashioned grocery store (reminded me of the one that was in Dover, KS, where I went to grade school). It had an old wooden front porch with an old screened front door. It had old real hard wood floors; supplies consisting mainly of food staples, fresh eggs, and fresh milk in old fashioned bottles. It was a trip down memory lane. There was a man behind the counter that took his time making our sandwich, giving it all his attention, crafting it to the best of his ability, placing thick slabs of roast beef on the home made bun. I didn't want to rush his concentration. He rang up the sandwich and gave it to us, like it was his prized treasure, wanting to share something wonderful with us. We went back outside and sat on the front porch, watching few passerbys and waving. The first bite in to the sandwich, I could tell it was worth the wait. It was one of the best roast beef sandwiches I've had.

After taking our time with the tastey sandwich, we walked down the street (where we left the bikes outside) to the ice cream shop where Todd wanted a root beer float. This tasted like an every day root beer float you may make at your home, but we were grateful for the refreshment to cool us off.

We felt ready to bike back to Greenport. The trip back went a lot quicker than the trip there. Probably, due to our many stops and gazing at the sites we passed by.

Next door to the B&B is a brewery in an old firehouse. They were allowing customers to try several different flavors for a nominal price. He enjoys tasting different beers. I'm not a beer drinker, but stayed with him while he enjoyed the tasting.

It was time to catch the train but we were not quite ready to go. It still seemed like we could've stayed another day and soaked up more of the uniqueness that was in the air.

Philadelphia 4th of July

On July 3rd, late Saturday morning, we took the New Jersey Transit to Philadelphia for the Fourth of July weekend. The ride went quickly as we each read reading material we bring with us to keep us occupied. We arrived after 12:00 and excited to be here for the holiday weekend. We grabbed a sandwich at a deli inside the terminal and headed toward the Philadelphia Art Museum. This was a little trek, especially with us carrying our luggage. We bought tickets for the Renoir exhibit, which I was especially excited about since I love his work.

The museum gave us a specific time to see the exhibit later in the afternoon. We decided to find a nice place to have a picnic for lunch. We walked past Fairmont Park (it was closed off for the next day's fireworks) and stumbled across Lemon Hill, which was across the street and up a hill. We found a shady spot under a beautiful tree and spread out for a picnic. It was one of the most relaxing afternoons we've had for a while.

We enjoyed eating our sandwich while we looked out across the skyline. It was a beautiful day, a little warm but to be expected in July. We relaxed on our outstretched beach towel and enjoyed the scenery. Usually we would've tried to find something to do before the art exhibit, but today we wanted to take it slow and not try to cram so much in one day, so we leisurely read and rested; I enjoyed looking up through the tree and seeing the sun shine through the complicated limbs. We were able to sigh and catch our breath before the next activity.

It was time for the Art Exhibit, so we packed up camp and walked back to the Museum across the street. We had a little bit of time to look at other exhibits before our scheduled time for Renoir. The Museum has an incredible collection of Abstract Expressionists, one room after the other, we were awe strucken at the quantity of famous paintings. The Art Exhibit was amazing and surprisingly not crowded. It was fascinating to learn about Renoir's life. He was so dedicated to his painting that in his later years he developed a sever case of arthritis and had the choice of either walking or painting and he chose painting! He spent the last years of his life in a wheel chair but still painted every day. He was a family man and was married to the same woman all his life and raised three sons. I was so grateful for this experience of seeing such a collection of his works.

Being the walkers that we are (do we have a choice?) we walked to the hotel, which was quite the trek, at least a mile. By the time we got to the hotel I was ready to rest in cool air! We stayed at the Hyatt at the Bellvue on Broad St. It was a nice hotel with a beautiful lobby-a tremendous chandelier. We weren't real hungry yet but felt it was time to eat something; and I didn't want to do any more walking for the night, so we ate appetizers at the hotel restaurant, XIX. The food was excellent-better than we were expecting (since hotel food can be common and bland). We ordered the meat and cheese platter-goat cheese, mountaineer cheese and salami. Excellent. Flavorful. The platter had mango chutney and rasberry jam. Todd ordered the tun tar tar served with potato cakes. The tar tar was skillfully seasoned. He said it was some of the best tar tar he's tasted.

I guess in Philadelphia they want to do a trial run of the fireworks; there was going to be a display the night before at Penn's Landing. So being the type to not call it a night yet, we took the subway to Penn's Landing and walked a couple of blocks. We got there at the tail end of the display, but it was still a treat to get to see over the water with bridges in the background and hearing Gershwin playing. The patriotic spirit was definitely brewing. Ice cream was calling our name from a store down the street, but when we got there, there was a long line (I guess we didn't respond quick enough) so we decided to walk around in Old Town and come back.

We stumbled across Elfreth's Alley, an old cobblestone street. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited residential streets in the country, dating back to the early 1700s. We walked down the alley, the historical importance felt as we passed the Georgian and Federal style homes. Coming back to the ice cream shop, the line was still out to the street, we realized, sadly, it was not meant to be. I lied when I said we weren't going to walk anymore today.

We had just missed the bus and debated whether to wait for the next one. Impatience won out, so we (me begrudgingly) headed back to the hotel-which was about nine blocks away. This doesn't sound like very many, but when it's late at night and you've walked all day, one block would seem too far. Sunday we took the bus out to attend 2nd church, on School House Road. It was about a 40 minute bus ride. We had been to the other two churches in PA, so this was the last one to attend. It was a Frank Lloyd Wright kind of architecture; all white on the outside. It was plain inside the congregation also, all white walls with no writing inscribed. The service went well and I was grateful to have a church open for us to attend.

Guess what we did next? We WALKED to the next town (yes Todd, that was me exaggerating with typing in all CAPS). We walked to Mayunk. We passed an old stone bridge which set back from the road with trees growing up beside it. Very picturesque. On our way to Mayunk, I started questioning our wisdom of continuing our walk-the scenery was less than appealing to look at - abandoned stores and old abandoned warehouses. It was hot and I was ready to turn back. Todd said it wasn't over until the fat lady sings. I responded that the fat lady was going to start singing. He didn't think that was very funny.

We continued walking and lo and behold we did reach the town and it was worth the sweat. There were neat shops and unique restaurants. Our favorite type of town. One we had not found in PA until now. We walked through the whole town, which comprised of one several blocks on main st. The Bourbon Blue caught our eye for lunch. It was set back away from main street, on the corner of the next block. The food was pretty good; the atmosphere was plain without ambiance. I ordered the chicken po'boy and Todd had the alligator (yes, alligator) sausage quesadillas. We finally got our ice cream at Dairyland-we ordered the peanut butter sundae-vanilla ice cream with peanut butter sauce. Yum!

We took the commuter train back in to Philadelphia (thank goodness! I would've had to put my foot down if Todd had wanted to walk back to the hotel. I would've told him to have a nice walk and see you back at the hotel...) Out loud I said-"how nice, they have a commuter train"... We arrived at the Market Terminal and walked a couple blocks to China town. It was less crowded than we're used to in New York. Maybe it's the "hot" hand bags that draws people. Maybe I should suggest that...

We came across "Hutchinson" street, so we had to get a picture of it. We continued walking (yes this is our current past time of walking everywhere. You would think we would weigh 100 pounds by now). We strolled (I feel I might've used the verb walking too much...what do you think?) on to the Constitution Center, which was air conditioned, so we really liked this building. It was 4:30 and it closed at 5:00, so we had to add this to our list for next time we come back. We continued to the Visitor's Center and across the street of the Center was the Liberty Bell.

Took the subway back to the Benjamin Franklin parkway where there was a street fair. It was crowded and we were ready to find a place on the grass and plant ourselves. We had several hours before the music started playing and the headliner band-the Goo Goo Dolls would be performing (which I was excited about but I had to explain to Todd who they were and no they were not dolls made out of goo). We just listened to the music, laying down on our beach towel, hoping not to get stepped on. We were on our way to Lemon Hill to see the fireworks but they started before we could get there. We stood and still had a good view. The display was incredible-probably one of the best ones I've seen. There were unique ones-that looked like waterfalls in 3D coming out of the sky falling toward you. Amazing.

Monday, Todd had off from work. We took the train to Atlantic City for the day! We went to the White House Sub shop, which is well known in this area. I stood in a long line; the customers have to take a number. The sandwich was on a huge sub and we ordered only half! It was one of the best sub sandwiches we've had. We walked to the beach and enjoyed laying in the sand for a bit and riding the waves. We decided to grab dinner before we left at the Melting Pot-which was the place we had our second date in Kansas City, MO. We sat at the bar and ordered the fruit, bread and vegetable vondu and ordered a fabulous dessert. I also ordered a caramel rasberry ice tea which was delicious!

We caught the Greyhound bus back to New York. Another successful trip!