Mid Hudson Walkabout!

Today was a fine fall day, and I really didn't feel like staying in and rotting while the sun was shining, but I had no cash. But I has feets, and there's interesting stuff within reasonable walking distance.

Here's a snap of the southern end of the recently completed Vineyard Ave overpass works on US 9W in Highland. The sign in the midground is brand new. Can you spot the Boo-Boo, Yogi?


Today was rather unique in that I finally decided to deal with one of my phobias. I have a thing about heights in general, and walking across suspension bridges in particular. In the seven years I've lived here, I've never crossed the Mid-Hudson Bridge on foot. Today I decided I was gonna man up and tackle this puppy.

This is a monument to two locals killed in Vietnam north of the foot of the bridge:

Here's the Ulster/Dutchess county line in the middle of the bridge.

A slightly dodgy US 9 advance sign...

And everybody's favourite: Button Copy! This sign has gotta be at least 35-40 years old.


I followed the Walkway Loop Trail, more or less, through Poughkeepsie. There are a lot of interesting things to be found there: some of them road related, some not:


The church is the new Mount Carmel Catholic Church-it dates from 1968: I would have placed it as being much older. This is at the end of Mill Street in Poughkeepsie-within spitting distance of the US 9 Freeway.

I eventually meandered over to my goal-the eastern end of the Walkway. I found this neat item at the turn for Parker Avenue off Washington Street:

This sign indicates the opening date for the Walkway. As I walked up Parker, I got some indication of the popularity of the Walkway. People are selling parking spots. There was a lady in front of Tech-Mechanical selling spots in their car park for 3 bucks, and a guy further up the street selling spots for $5. There was no parking to be had on Parker Ave; and the car park at the eastern foot of the bridge was full up.

When I got onto the walkway, I noticed that there was some railway debris in the woods beside the trail, and ultimately, I ran into this old signal:

Sadly the lens was broken, and it looks in pretty bad shape. It'd be nice if someone restored it.

Having a public park running through your back yard isn't stunningly popular with everybody. As I was walking along, I heard some guy complaining about people looking out over his yard: 'It's "private property"' he was saying over and over again. That may be so, but if something is of interest to people, they're gonna look at it, and there's sod all you can do about it. Sucks to be him, I suppose.

There are a lot of nice views to be had from the Walkway:

And fun and interesting things to see, like water traffic along the Hudson:

This latter bit was absolutely fascinating to a little boy walking along the bridge with his family. He was darting all about to get a glimpse of the 'Tuggy'. People were also interested in watching the trains on the west shore of the Hudson. There was a fair crowd on the walkway, today-not elbow to elbow, but there were all sorts of folks taking in the nice weather and the views. It's been pretty consistent: if the weather is fine at the weekend, there will be a lot of folks on the bridge. Not just locals, either. I saw a few out of state plates, too.

For those who are interested Here's the Flickr set. Tomorrow looks to be fine, too, so there may be additions!