Day 131 - On to the Erie Canal

We had a 5:00 am flight out of Chicago, so called a cab for 3:45 am as we live very close to O’Hare Airport.  The cab service we use is usually early, so the Captain was getting very nervous when it had not arrived by 3:45 am.  Finally, at 3:57 am, it pulled up and we hopped in.  Luckily the airport is not too busy at 4:00 am and we made our flight to Newark.  We had a short layover and then caught our plane to Albany, where we were meeting my Dad, Dick Berg, who was coming from Minneapolis to join us on this leg.  He landed at 11:00 am and after meeting him at the gate we picked up our rental car and were off.

Our boat was in Kingston, at Rondout Yacht Basin, about an hour away.  Since we had the whole afternoon, we decided to drive a little further south to Hyde Park and visit the FDR Home, Presidential Library and Museum.  We stopped in Rhinebeck, a small town along the way for a very nice lunch at Terrapin, on the outdoor patio.  FDR was born on the family estate called Springwood, and always considered it his home.  Before he died, he arranged to donate the home and library to the National Park system, which also owns most of the 120 acres or so that made up the estate.  After a guided tour of the large, beautiful home, we walked through the stables and rose garden, where Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, are buried.

 

 

 



 

 

Behind the museum there are busts of Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, facing each other.  There is a sculpture of two figures crafted from pieces of the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the continued struggle for freedom that the 2 heads of state fought so valiantly for.  The museum is filled with memorabilia and houses the actual oval office desk that FDR used as President and his 1936 Ford convertible, custom designed with hand controls for him.  Dick managed to get quite far ahead of Captain Randy and myself in the museum and was soon out of sight.  I figured he would be waiting near the entrance for us, but he was neither inside nor outside.  Great, I thought, it has only been 5 hours and we have lost Dad already!

 

We walked back to the Visitor’s Center and still didn’t see him, so now I was concerned and had the Captain call his cell phone – which we could hear ringing.  He was sitting at a table around the corner, looking at some brochures.  Thank goodness.

It was time to find a grocery store and get back to the boat.  I managed to find a supermarket close to Kingston and we stocked up.  It was getting dark by the time we got to the marina.  We found a cart and it took us 2 trips to unload our bags and groceries.  Tired and hungry again, we drove the short distance to town and had dinner at Savona’s Trattoria.  We set up the bed in the galley for Dad and all of us were ready to turn in after a long, but good day.