Day 21: Hyde Park, NY to Fairlee, VT

We started today with a stop at Dick’s Sporting goods. How exciting, relight?! I bought Mike a little type light weight hammock for camping, specifically for this trip. It was his Father’s Day present and I bought it on a whim and stuck it in our camping stuff. We left for this trip on Father’s Fay do there really wasn’t much of a celebration for Mike this year. Anyway, we get to Shenandoah and try to hang up the hammock and the puddly ropes it came with were simply not enough. The camp store had everything but proper hammock hangers. We forgot to pick them up at our family stops this last week, but happily my I remembered this morning. And, also happily, there was a mall with a Dick’s in Poughkeepsie. So. 

That was not, however, the highlight of our day, no matter how exciting it seems. Poughkeepsie is just a few miles out from Hyde Park, NY. That is where we spent the first half of our day. To be more specific we toured the home, grounds, and presidential library/museum of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was an extremely interesting man. The house was gorgeous, the grounds breathtaking, the museum/library amazing. We could easily have spent all day there, not to mention at the other family estates in the area. The FDR grounds did not mention much about Eleanor Roosevelt, her home, museum, etc. is just a few miles away at Valkill. It was a fairly long drive to Vermont from Hyde Park, sadly we had to skip the other things there. 

Grabbed lunch at a diner, then headed for a very scenic drive through New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont yo our final destination. Not much to say about the drive other than it was very scenic and pretty. We passed through some tiny little towns and some tiny towns that weren’t quite as tiny. When we passed into Vermont we could see the ski slopes all through the mountains and the tiny little towns that are surely a skier’s paradise in winter. 

Our final destination was Lake Morey resort. Beautiful place right on Lake Morey. And here is where we will stay for the next couple of days. Canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, hiking, bike riding, swimming, all sorts of fun and relaxing things await us. The weather was insanely gorgeous today, just perfect. It never climbed out of the 79s, the sky was a beautiful clear blue, no clouds. Tomorrow and Monday are forecast to be about the same, a little warmer with temps in the low to mid 89s. 

Ben wants to play in the lake water tonight. We came close, Mike talked me into giving it a go. Almost. We were down by the canoes, it’s nearly full dark and I just couldn’t do it. Even though we all had life vests on, I just didn’t feel good about it. I learned long ago to follow my gut, trust my instincts, whatever. So I pulled the plug and disappointed my kid. Tomorrow is another day though and if we can manage in daylight, maybe we’ll try it at twilight again.