Friday, August 24th, 2007
In the neverending quest for beauty and serenity, Laura and I decided to visit Saratoga Springs, NY and Lake George, NY yesterday.
I wanted to visit Saratoga Springs because a few years ago, we went to a concert at SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center). After the concert, we decided to head downtown. At the time (in the dark) we just thought it was the cat’s meow. That brought us back for another look in the daylight.
We entered town from the South and stopped for lunch before we hit downtown. It was a little weird because we were on the outskirts. I wasn’t too impressed with what we saw. The daylight shed some light on a few things. After lunch, we headed downtown for a drive through. This was much better, with even a little cosmo feel. They do a great job at keeping the area up. There was quite a bit of traffic though, due to the tourists (like us).
I thought the town was really nice, but not quite for us to spend any amount of time in. We started heading out and Laura suggested we visit Lake George, since we were almost there. I agreed.
We headed up to Lake George and thought it would be fun to re-visit a campground called, “Adirondack Camping Village.” This is a great looking campground with some nice, private camp sites. We stayed at this campground a few years back for a night. That is a story in itself that we have laughed about. Let’s just day, prepare before you camp.
Ok, we headed towards Lake George Village for some nice photos and ice cream.
Lake George is a pretty fun place. We didn’t spend all that much time there because we had a long ride home. I was actually getting a little sick of driving, but we did what we had to do.
Overall, it was a good day because it got some things out of my system, which needed to be done.
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Monday, August 13th, 2007
I am getting a little sick and tired of traveling through little towns that are desperate for income. You see the strangest people walking the sidewalks along with a whole row of stores on main street that are ready to close down. It’s almost like no one in the area has a good idea. Who the heck knows.
So, with that in mind, I have been on a little hunt. Where are Laura and I going to spend the next chunk of life? I think we have narrowed it down to either Woodstock, NY or Red Hook, NY. Both of those town are beautiful. We have been to Woodstock quite a bit lately and found it very relaxing. It is off the beaten path a bit though. I have been thinking of something a little closer to the middle…you know, near Massachusetts, Kingston and the Catskills. Two towns close to the middle are Red Hook and Rhinebeck, NY.
Here is what I like about these two towns -
1. Nice proximity to the Berkshires, Kingston, the Catskills and Albany
2. Close to the Hudson River
3.Close to Bard College
4. Nice history of both towns
5. Nice culture
6. Clean people
So, after thinking all these things, we decided to jump in the car yesterday to go for a ride. We drove up Rt.209 and crossed the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. Our first order of business was to visit this campground that my family camped at when we were kids. It is called Interlake RV Park. After traveling through the woods for a while and getting kind of lost, I asked for directions, twice. We passed the coolest place. It is called Omega Institute. Check it out. It was nice to see something buried way back in the woods that was thriving. The parking lot was full. We kept on driving and finally found the campground. I talked to the lady in the office and she let us look around. The reason I remember this campground is because when we went on a boat ride in their lake, a snake slithered out from under the seat. We had just gotten out of the boat, so we were lucky.
I have to say, this campground was thriving too. It was a pretty nice place, very well kept and clean. The only thing that bugged me is that the individual camp sites were kind of close together. Also, there seemed to be a lot of permanent RVs. Otherwise, it was nice.
After that, we headed down Rt.19 and some other roads into Rhinebeck. I visited Rhinebeck a while ago, but really didn’t get a good look at it. We came in from the West, so I got a better look at it this time. I had no idea how nice it really is. I didn’t get any really nice pictures, but I did get a few.
The picture above is the sign of the Beekman Arms Inn. This was a really nice place. Who knows…maybe one day we will stay there. Ok, put this town on the “move to” list.
We drove North on Rt.9G out of town towards Red Hook. We drove through Red Hook and found that very nice as well. That went on the “move to” list too. It is a small town and a little more quiet, so I like it. It is also closer to the bridge and Bard College. That is good. Since it is less crowded, I think there might be more potential for that town. I can mold it into what I want.
The last thing I wanted to see was Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. I was telling Laura that I find it amazing that I have lived in this area for such a long time and have never seen this school. I have heard that it is nice and I wanted to see for myself. Soooo, yeah, Bard College is really nice. There were little tours going on for the new students. Either that or students looking at colleges. I guess this is the time of year they do this stuff. The people looked very nice, even a little hippy-ish. I like that too. We drove through campus to see the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. They have all sorts of shows there, which I will be bringing Laura to in a few months.
The end of the day was coming and we had some shopping to do on the other side of the river, so we headed out. During our drive back across the bridge, I handed the camera to Laura to see if she could get any good shots of the Catskill Mountians. That is a real perk…that view. Some of them were blurry because we were moving, but one came out the best. There was also the coolest little airport right off the highway on the Kingston side of the bridge. It’s called the Kingston-Ulster Airport and is for small aircraft.
We did our shopping and headed home to look on realtor.com. I will keep you informed. It may take a few years.
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Monday, August 6th, 2007
Yesterday was pretty fun. We did something that I have been waiting a while to do…to go hiking at Sam’s Point in the Hamlet of Cragsmoor. If you remember, we went up there on Christmas. That was pretty cool, but I didn’t get all that many great photos.
I have been suggesting that we head up to Sam’s Point again and I guess my suggestions paid off. Laura was gingerly excited about the hike. With the hike, came nice pictures, so here you are…
Here we are, down in the parking lot, looking up at the cliff. I thought I really wanted to do the whole walk around Loop Road, but at that point, I was thinking about just getting to the top of the cliff and coming back down. Laura made me do the whole loop. She is a woman of power and not to be underestimated.
At the top of the mountian, past South Gully Trail and High Point Carriageway and about half way through the almost three mile walk, I took a few photos of Lake Maratanza. Using my awesome Photoshop skills, I pasted them together.
A bit past the lake, there was a trail down to the ice caves and Verkeerder Kill Falls. We didn’t walk down that way, but it was a good opportunity to get a shot of some mountains, probably the Berkshires, because we were facing East.
After we made almost all the way around, I begged Laura to take a picture of me. Here it is.
These are some pictures I took of the Sam’s Point lookout. There were a bunch of shots, but I had to narrow them down to these. They all kind of look like each other.
This was a cool big rock we passed on the way back down to the lodge (if that’s what it’s called). Again, I pasted a few shots together to get this one.
This is the bottom of the trail, back at the lodge. Prett cool, huh?
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Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
I took the day off yesterday to visit Cooperstown, NY with Laura. I woke up to discover that I really didn’t want to be in the car for all that long, so we decided to go up to the Catskill Mountains for a day trip.
We started out by driving up Rt.209 through Ellenville. Then, we made a left on to Rt.3 in Kerhonkson all the way up past the Ashokan Reservoir. I wanted to show Laura the New York State DEC on Rt.28a. We pulled into the park like thing next to the DEC and I grabbed a photo…
That was pretty cool. I think the hippies from Woodstock come down here with their kids to walk around.
Ok, we continued on our way. One of the main reasons for this trip was to go up to visit the fruit and veggie stand up on Rt.32. We go up there every year and stock up good. The eatin’ in nice after that…
Since it wasn’t really harvest season all that much, we just picked up corn, green beans, tomatoes (which are really good) and some other things. Oh, by the way, the fruit stand is called Story Farms Home Grown Produce. I am thinking they are located in Catskill, NY. If you make a left while heading up Rt.32, you can go up to Hunter Mountain.
Every time we drive around in this area, Laura always starts talking about her past with the Catskill Game Farm. She used to up there with her grandparents and pet the animals. Well, she wanted to show me what it was all about. She knew they already closed down, but still wanted me to see it.
It’s true…the Catskill Game Farm is closed down. It was quite depressing to look at the place. The parking lots were barren and not a soul was in sight, except for the girl who was tailgating me all the way up the road. At least Laura got to show me what the thing was about. It kind of reminded me of Binghamton’s Ross Park Zoo.
On the way back, we found a shortcut down Rt.33 into Woodstock. Of course we had to visit there. We are considering a move to that area in the future and are doing a little driving around to get used to it. It was pretty nice just hanging around.
Back in the day, I would’ve just driven through town and went home. These days, I am stopping and sitting around like a lazy fool. Laura was looking for a birthday present for her mother. It’s coming up fast. We even had lunch at Joshua’s Cafe in Woodstock. That was nice. We had a good vegetarian lunch.
Right after lunch, we walked up a few shops into Woodstock Wines and Liquors. I like to get crazy wine from that place. I think this time we got honey berry and rasberry wine. I don’t remember, but I know it was fruit wine. I got a blueberry wine from there last time I was visiting and it was really tasty.
The last part of our day was a bit of a mission. I wanted to cruise over to Phoenicia, NY. I am all about checking out campgrounds to possibly stay at in the future. The campground is called Phoenicia Black Bear Campground. Every time I passed by in the past, I always thought it was really cute. I just had to walk inside this time.
We took Rt.212 and then Rt.40 into Phoenicia and took a look around. This campground is situated really nicely right on the shore of the Esopus River and is across the street from Town Tinker Tube Rental. People like to float down the Esopus.
Well, I took a little stroll inside the campground and thought it was really cute. One thing I did notice was the smell of septic. I also noticed a few kind of “permanent campers” scattered around. I saw the flex pipe coming out of the sides of the campers. This is for the septic, I think. That kind of turned me off. They did have really nice tent sites right on the side of the river though.
I walked back to the car, where Laura was and decided to drive through, just to see how big it was. We got in and made a quick left and then another quick left and realized that we were on the way out. Ok, not that big. Laura also noticed the septic smell and we crossed that campground off our list.
Overall, we had a really good day driving through the Catskills.
Till next time…
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Saturday, July 14th, 2007
I am going to try to keep this short. I thought I might write a bit about some of the things we bought while we were on our vacation in Punta Cana.
First and foremost, if you go to Punta Cana, you will likely return with a piece of Larimar. Larimar is the national stone of the Dominican Republic. They are quite proud of it and sell it almost everywhere you go. I bought Laura a few pieces of Larimar as pendants. They are really nice.
Here are the shops on the beach that we bought the Larimar…
While shopping on the beach, we also picked up something called, “Mamajuana Santiago.” Wikipedia says this about Mama Juana…“Mama Juana is a drink from the Dominican Republic that is concocted by allowing rum, red wine, and honey to soak into a bottle together with tree bark and herbs. The taste is quite similar to port wine and color is deep red. It is seen and advertised as an aphrodisiac.” We had some of this stuff and I would say it tasted like cough syrup. It isn’t bad and it may quite possibly be the aphrodisiac they say it is. Maybe…
When you head down the beach to browse around, you are going to be aggressively called by many shop employees. They want your money bad. Just ignore them and do what you want.
We also went shopping at the shops located within Iberostar Punta Cana Bavaro…
These shops are more formally run and quieter than the ones on the beach. We picked up a beautiful painting that is sized at about 40″x30″. They take the canvas off the wood frame and roll it up, so you can get it on the plane back. We also bought a cute coconut purse for Laura and two stainless steel rings for me.
One word of wisdom whenever you go shopping at a place like this…haggle the hell out of them. You should at least be able to purchase what you want for less than half of what they initially ask for. If they say they want $120 for something, I tell them I will give them $10. I know it seems funny, but it works.
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Sunday, July 8th, 2007
One of the nicest things about staying at the Iberostar Bavaro Resort was enjoying their setup. It was very fun during the day and quite romantic at night.
We saw many newlyweds on their honeymoons. We actually were questioned a few times by people who overheard our conversations about Laura’s sister’s wedding on the beach. We met a couple from Ohio while swimming in the ocean one night. They just got married and were on their honeymoon. They were in their early 20s, I think. Nice people.
I loved the lighting of the landscape at this resort. All the trees were lit up and there were nice antique lamp posts all around. I get bored fast, but to be forced to relax and hold hands with my little honey was sweet.
I did my best to take some night photos. I fiddled with the settings on my camera, but many of them just didn’t come out. Some of the better ones did though, so here goes…
This photo was taken on our way to eat one night…a nice little cluster of palm trees.
This is a good one. I wonder how many photos of the same statue are floating around the internet. I don’t know…whenever I see a nude statue I have to take a picture. This was taken right outside one of the buffets.
Another small cluster of palm trees.
Here is a photo of some of those antique lamp posts I was talking about. They lined some of the water features.
I am so happy that this photo came out, because it gives a chance for you to see how large my bicep really is. I think we were setting up our wake up call when Laura took a picture of us. This guy started making a muscle, so I did the same. Mine’s bigger…right?
After all the flexing, I had to take a break. I wanted to get a shot of me sitting on the couch right under this large horse.
I thought this was pretty cool. This fountain and chandelier were located in the center of the main reception area. I liked it because it reminded me of my favorite computer video game, Unreal.
This is a photo of one of the apartments at night. I thought they looked good because of the soft lighting.
There you go…only a few more left.
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Sunday, July 8th, 2007
The next section, or blog post, of our trip has to do with the beach at the Iberostar Bavaro Resort in Punta Cana. As you can see, I have quite a few photos of the trip. Luckily, I narrowed this one down to only four.
The beach was a lot better than expected. You know, you hear all the stuff about being white sand beauties from the resort literature, but who knows what is really true? We actually heard that this beach was more crowded than Jones Beach on the 4th of July.
There were a few people at the resort when we were there, so I don’t think it was the slow season or anything, but I am sure there are many more people there in February, when it’s really cold up in New York. The beaches had plently of places to sit under the little huts.
As you can see, the beach was pretty narrow from front to back. This was nice because it kept things very cozy, like it belonged to you. The people were pretty cool too. There really wasn’t any attitude. On many beaches, I would walk around and avoid certain sections that looked like they were owned by punks. Not here. The sand was pretty nice and the water was clear. There were coral reefs right in the swimming area and I didn’t see any sharks. Not even the toothless ones that I wanted to swim with. To see them, I would’ve had to take a boat ride out to another big reef and snorkle.
Down the beach a little ways, in between the Iberostar Bavaro and Iberostar Dominicana Resorts, there was snorkling equipment that I used. I went out and looked at this big chunk of coral and swam down the right side of it. The coral was a little beat up from people touching it, but the side was really nice because it was deeper than the rest. It looked like the stuff I saw on TV, with all the blue, yellow and striped fish. Really neat stuff. The resort also offers scuba diving, glass bottom boat rides, banana boat rides and horseback riding, to name a few. They offer a lot of things to do.
Here is a picture looking back at the resort, from the water. You can see all the little shaded huts for people to lounge under. Laura and I hung out under a few for a couple of hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. The breeze off the ocean and the shade made a nice cool combination. Also, the bar was to the right, which helped.
Down the beach, to the South, were little shops owned by who knows. They sold all sorts of stuff, but you really have to haggle with them. I am pretty good at that from my days down on Canal Street buying watches. I bought a few Larimar pendants for Laura, as well as other things I will discuss in a later post. The shopping was interesting and fun.
Did I mention we hung out in the shade for a while? Amazingly enough, the only place I got sunburned was my feet and lower legs from the walk over to the little shops that one day. Even with all the snorkling and swimming I did in the ocean, I didn’t get burned at all, althought we did do a lot of swimming at night (in the buff…my favorite). I saw plenty of people with sunburn, but they may have been doing that on purpose so they have something to talk about when they get home. When you reach a certain age, I think sunburn makes you look like an idiot. If you haven’t learned about the effects of it and are still standing out in the sun getting burned on purpose, there is a problem. Laura and I avoided it like crazy.
So, there we have it…a short little todo on our little section of the beaches of Punta Cana.
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Saturday, July 7th, 2007
So here are some of the long awaited for photos from our vacation at Iberostar Bavaro Resort in Punta Cana. As I mentioned above, I am breaking these posts down into sections so I don’t have to place all my photos in one huge post. I am sure the people with dial-up will appreciate that…that is if you are someone looking for photos of Punta Cana.
I always hated it when someone goes on vacation and comes back with either their hair braided or with a million stories. “Ohhhhh, it was SOOOOO gorgeous!!!” Really now. Just tell us about it, only if we ask. Normally people don’t care about someone else’s vacation unless they are planning a visit there themselves. If you are at home and still have the braided hair, just know that people are talking about you. Sometimes pictures are fun to look at though.
Laura and I had many questions before leaving for this trip. I will write the Q & A below (these apply only to Iberostar Bavaro, Punta Cana and Dominicana resorts)…
- Does the resort have internet access? - Yes, but only in an internet cafe. The computers look kind of old and we didn’t go in to check them out. No matter what you read out there, this resort does not have any wireless access available yet. To use the internet cafe, you have to go to the front desk and get a ticket that they will charge to your room.
- Does this area have cell phone coverage? - Yes, I called my sister a few times and it worked fine with good signal. I didn’t have to dial any differently than I do at home.
- Does this resort have American style electrical outlets? - Yes, the outlets are merged with the European style outlet (I think). Everything we had plugged in and worked just fine.
- Can you drink the water? - Yes, this resort had its own water purification system. Neither Laura nor I had any issues. Some friends of ours felt a bit sick, but that may have been because they were drunk the whole time. The hotel recommended that we don’t drink the tap water in the rooms or use it to brush our teeth and we didn’t. It did smell chlorinated though. They said that the water in the restaurants and bars was filtered. The ice is fine too.
- Can you make phone calls from the rooms? - Yes, you can call other rooms and make outside calls with a credit card.
- Is there an iron and ironing board in the room? - Yes, they have both.
- How is the food? - I would have to say that it was pretty damn good, even at the buffets. I actually preferred the buffets more.
- Is the resort safe? - I would say so. We felt very safe. There are security guards standing at all the enterances during the night and the staff suggests security if you want to leave the resort. Even with the security, we didn’t really feel them there.
- Are there any medical services at the resort? - Yes, there is a doctor’s office, a pharmacy and an ambulance.
- Do people steal stuff from your room? - No one stole anything from us. I brought a laptop and a cell phone. There is a safe in the room. I fit my 15.4 inch screen sized laptop in the safe, along with everything else of value that we had. It was nice not to have to worry. We also used those little suitcase padlocks to keep our suitcases locked. Also, you can just put the “Do not disturb” sign on the door and the cleaning lady won’t enter the room.
I know there were more and I will add them if I can think of them. Let’s get to the pictures. I tried to pull out the ones with no, or few, people…
This is a photo of one of the many paths at the resort. The Iberostor Bavaro is made up of one big main building and many small apartment style buildings where the rooms are. There are 8 apartments in each of the small buildings. I liked this better than the other resorts because it had so much more character this way.
This is one of the fountains. This one is located at the North side of the Iberostar Bavaro leading into the Iberostar Dominicana.
This is just one of the shots I took from our room balcony. I took this with Laura’s camera, which handles color much better than mine. I think I was smoking my first Cuban cigar at the time, but don’t tell anyone that.
This is another random photo that I thought looked pretty good. If you are planning to go on a trip anywhere, you really analyze every photo.
Ok, back to my camera. This photo was taken when we first arrived at the resort. We were walking out of the main desk/reception area, over this little bridge towards the rooms. To the left was a big buffet hall and to the right was a stage for entertainment and a bar.
This is another photo from our balcony. Do you like these shots? I do, that’s why I took them.
This is a photo of the front of our building. We had room number 1138. We were up the stairs and to the right. Laura’s brother and girlfriend were right next door.
This is a nice shot of a path leading to the main pool.
We were out for a walk one evening and I think I kept taking pictures of the same things. Well, this is one of them. Just some of the trees and some lawn.
They had the coolest man-made pond in the middle of one of the paths. There were all types of fish in there. I liked it because the fish were actually the same ones that I used to buy from the pet store for my tropical fish tank.
This is a good shot out on the beach. I was facing North trying to get the beach path. I think I even got a European with a Speedo for your own pleasure.
This is a photo of our walk to the buffet and main reception area. There was a nice wooden bridge type thing that would bring you to various places, like the buffet room and some of the restaurants.
There were many gardens with water features that I took pictures of.
Here is a rest/drinking area out near main reception. People like to sit here and relax.
This is another chill out area located out in the middle of the apartments. There are chairs and a small pond. Also, in the back left, you can see a cage type thing. I beleive there were some birds in there.
As I mentioned above, there were some wood bridges. This is one of them. Be careful, they are very slippery when wet.
I think I took this picture right after the wedding. We were eating and I was crazy hot, so I got up for a break. This path leads out to the beach.
On the right side of the wooden bridge, there were really nice ponds and gardens. I will get to the animals later in another post.
Here is another picture of some of the landscaping.
This is a great shot of the wooden bridge near the buffet and restaurants.
Hey look…it’s me sitting on a big chess board!!!
Ok, so I think the resort is really nice. Everyone was very pleasant and accomodating. If you like people doing things for you, you shouldn’t have a problem here. Laura and I thought that 5 days was a good time to stick around. I think you might get bored after that. There were plenty of things to do, but the humidity kind of made us lazy. The heat wasn’t bad…very similar to up here in New York, but the humidity will kill you.
I did like some things I saw related to energy efficiency at the resort. Here is a list of what I noticed…
- CFL bulbs
- Window film
- Air conditioning shuts off when the sliding doors are opened
- Two flush buttons on the toilet…one big one and one little one. Each lets out a different amount of water. Use your imagination.
- Many trees shading the building
- Automatic switch shuts off closet light when the closet door is shut
The Dominican Republic needs a bit of work with their automotive exhaust, but it’s good to see that they are trying to conserve electricity.
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Friday, July 6th, 2007
I had some concerns about visiting the Island of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic actually shares the island with Haiti, to the West.
I wasn’t sure about the safety. I didn’t wear my watch because of this. Yeah, I didn’t wear my watch worth about $100, but I brought my laptop. Whatever. I thought we were going to land and kind of be on our own. I thought the trip to the resort was going to be through some back woods jungle with people trying to stop us to mug us. Some was true, some wasn’t.
After landing at Punta Cana Airport, we all hopped off the airplane. We were organized into a group and walked into the inside of the terminal. Getting off the plane wasn’t as big of a shock as if it would’ve been if it was February. The temperature was about 88 degrees, but very humid. It wan’t much different than up here, just a lot more humid. I mean huuuuuuuumid.
We walked into the terminal to be greeted by someone taking our picture. The first sale. Well, we didn’t buy it, but that gave us a hint of what we were in for. We went through that line and had to show our passports and purchase a tourist card for $10. We took a few more steps and showed our passport to someone else who took the tourist card from us. Well, there goes our first $10. A few of us were more than suspicious about where the heck our $10 just went. Whatever…moving on.
I have to say, the terminal was very cool. It was open and airy and the roof was made of palm. You could feel the wind flow right through the place. We went to claim our baggage. I found Laura’s but couldn’t find mine. I bit later on, Laura discovered that someone had kindly taken my suitcase off the conveyor belt and left it on the ground. Nice guy, I’m sure.
After getting our baggage, we were swarmed by a bunch of guys who wanted tips. They would grab your bags and walk them to another room. They wanted your money. I gave the first guy a few bucks, but handled my own bags after that. If I gave everyone money who wanted it, I would be broke. Everyone was very nice though. Not much danger, just a bunch of people who wanted tips. If you are into having things done for you, this is the place.
We found the bus that would bring us to Iberostar Bavaro in Punta Cana. Here is the actual resort page.
The bus we got onto was parked near what seemed to be a thousand other buses. We gave the driver our baggage and boarded the bus. There weren’t too many people on it. We were heading to the resort.
The bus was an old diesel with what seemed to be an interesting transmission. Some of the vehicles need a little maintenance. The resort was 22km away and the trip took about 40 minutes, I would guess. I didn’t have a watch on. We drove along the beginnings of a highway. I would see the big signs with pictures of what’s to come. Punta Cana is under construction. It was kind of neat bouncing around in the back of the bus heading to who knows what.
We passed a bunch of what many people would consider not so nice areas. Even right outside the resort, I said to Laura, “I am not too impressed.”
Next…the resort.
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Friday, July 6th, 2007
Laura and I decided to go on a little trip. Well, actually, Laura’s sister Kim was getting married, so the trip was important. The marriage was to take place in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
I took so many photos during this trip that I decided I am going to break them up into a bunch of little posts. The reason for this is to give some information. Before we left for this trip, we had so many questions. Now, we have some answers. I just hope I can remember everything.
Anyway, the first part of the trip to Punta Cana was the airplane ride from Stewart International Airport (SWF) to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL). The second part of getting there was the airplane ride from Philadelphia to Punta Cana Airport (PUJ).
Now, I know there aren’t too many people out there who care about our airplane ride, but I did see some pretty neat things. Here are some photos and descriptions below…
This photo is of our takeoff from Stewart. We took off on runway 27 heading West. We took off in a Dash 8 Turboprop. The flight was pretty short getting to Philadelphia, but I had my camera ready in my hand. I was a bit leary of the turboprop, but I really liked it once we were on. Those props are pretty damn strong. The plane has nice pull for takeoff.
After we had some altitude, we passed over Walden, NY. I remember this town, because during one of my flights, I passed over and asked what that cute little town on the river was.
After passing over the Shawangunk Ridge, I spotted Joseph Y Resnick Airport in Ellenville, NY. I just thought that was a pretty cool photo.
Remember the trip Laura and I took almost to Frost Valley? Along the way on that trip, we saw the Rondout Reservoir. Here is a photo of it from the air.
We also saw the Neversink Reservoir from the air as well.
This is really cool. I have been waiting to post this photo the whole trip. It is the first time I ever saw live wind turbines (from the air and from the ground). Towards the right, there was a whole row of them, but the second photo didn’t come out that great. I think this was in Pennsylvania somewhere.
This photo was taken during our approach to Philadelphia Airport. I am not sure of the runway, but the final approach went over the river.
We took off from Philadelphia on an Airbus 320a. This was a pretty good plane. It is smaller than some other jetliners but flew very well. After leaving Philadelphia, almost the whole flight was over the Atlantic Ocean, so there wan’t much point of taking photos of nothing. We had to re-route three times due to the weather. We didn’t hit much turbulence. The photo above is one over Punta Cana (inland a bit). I kept seeing these sticks coming out of the ground and later realized they were palm trees. Also, I saw a bunch of white animals that I learned were goats. Punta Cana is a different place.
I brought my laptop on this trip and hoped to use it. The first time I had a little time to take it out and turn it on was while waiting for our flight out of Stewart. I thought I connected to the internet, but was brought to a page asking for about $7 to use their internet access. I turned the computer off a little agitated. I thought airports had good internet, not something I was going to have to pay almost $7 to use for about ten minutes. Oh well.
We landed without incident in Punta Cana to only be welcomed by a blast of hot air…
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