Went up the line yesterday and stopped at the Military Museum of Southern New England in Danbury CT. This place should be a required class trip and then some as it really breaks down WW2 in all its stages. There are tanks outside in the yard, British, American and Soviet models and all kinds of military artifacts in the museum itself. Of course some Nazi memorabilia is displayed but it's in historical context and you really get a sense of the tragedy of war here and the sacrifices men made for our freedom. That cyberslut over at Duke should really come here, get some perspective on Life and then we hit the Danbury Fair Mall. In the car my friend started doing Shock the Monkey in an Irish brogue ("cover me when I sleep...") and so how are you giving back? Saw a road banner in the big YO, St. John the Baptist Casino Night. Why not just have a Whorehouse too to benefit the school and church? So we're on Rte. 6 coming from Danbury heading into Brewster and the road is sparse, lonely and desolate with a few scattered businesses and dwellings here and there and it's like a UFO would land somewhere here at 3 in the morning (State Trooper: "Holy Shit!!!"). My friend goes this place is nice but weird like you'd have a longtime married couple here without any kids and so you heard of the Bigfoot Belt, there's a Porno Belt here. Starting just past the Danbury border ya got one and when you head on into the Village of Brewster itself there's another one. A real hole in the wall place, some claustrophobic dump with the usual generic porn and there's like some exhaust fan here or maybe that's the Mexican deli next door, you're thinking bedbugs. This is the squalor part of Town but then you got your more upscale Giggles ("Why not?") in Carmel, Wappingers Falls and Hyde Park just past Po'town, things the weary traveler needs to know. Just because it's the Country doesn't mean it doesn't have an Underbelly, some David Lynchian cavern where some guy with an apple in his mouth just crapped in a diaper. These food courts in the malls, heavy on the Asian cuisine and Southwestern grilled fare. He pigged out, I held off. The Diet you know. Dunno what it is but malls get me depressed after a while, must be that existential vibe you got as a kid when your Mom and Dad were parking in the waffle-ceilinged parking garage at the Galleria and then later on you saw some gay-oriented graffiti in the Men's Room ("watch the monkey get hot, monkey"). The historically-minded traveler, the porno venturer, the spiritual-seeker, the cultural researcher, the consumerist, it's all here. Did you know Sears actually sells jeans already with rips in them? back in the day you would've thrown them out. Hey it's another Travelblog!
Life is short.
I love when you talk about shit I know.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Carmel (actually 10 miles from town out in the REAL woods). My husband grew up in Mahopac.
Brewster's nasty, always has been.
And yeah, there WERE UFO's back in the 80's. Remember Communion or whatever the name of that book was? We all saw the UFOs. It was real.
Are you going to go to Cold Spring? That's where I got married at a little teeny church that's not even a church anymore, just a historic restoration called The Chapel Of Our Lady.. it's right near the train tracks and up the hill from the gazebo or where there used to be one anyway.
This is a nice vacation. Go apple picking.
There were/are UFOs but Communion and Witley's story was bullshit.
ReplyDeleteAll I know is what I saw.
ReplyDeleteThere were really UFOs in the Hudson Valley. Whether he made his story up I don't know, but it really did happen.
The above kind of proves that the mentally handicap have more sense than some of these Libs/Progressive's.
ReplyDeleteFunny but I just went through Cold Spring today, had that Hudson Valley hankering and cut through Clarence Fahnestock Park to see some foliage. Yeah Brewster is pretty gangster but that Red Rooster hamburger joint up 22 is great.
ReplyDeleteMahopac Ave. in Somers and parts of Yorktown Heights are supposed to be a UFO hotspot btw.
ReplyDeleteI lived about 5 miles from Fahnestock on the east side of the Taconic.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how it looks now but imagine how it looked in 1970.
It was so incredibly beautiful. That's where I fell in love with geology.
The place has got some rocks I'll say!! Got lost there once bigtime, only time I got lost in the woods. Parked on the side of the parkway by Stillwater Lake, went into the stream there to do a little trout fishing and before you know it I got lost for most of the day. No food or water and after literally miles of walking the sun was setting but I saw the headlights of the cars ahead, a kind of streaming light and correctly guessed it was the Taconic so I went in that direction and eventually found my car. I had my moment of truth. That'd be a good subject to blog about, what is your moment of truth and what happened?
ReplyDeleteI think for me it was the first time I went to the temple and heard my (eventual) guru speak... and I realized that if I didn't have a house and a husband I would gladly give up everything and move into the ashram without a second thought.
ReplyDeleteEverything happens for a reason though... it wasn't my time. Maybe someday.
And the most beautiful place on the Hudson is about 5 miles south of the Bear Mt Bridge on the east side of the river.
ReplyDeleteTake 6 (or 9, whichever it is, we always just called it The Goat Path) from the bridge heading south towards Peekskill. You'll go up the mountain a ways and then on your right you'll see a lookout point.
I think the edge has been fenced off but it didn't used to be. From there you can see pretty much everything, West Point, Indian Point.. the river at that point, that area is called World's End. It's the most beautiful place in the world. I'll post a picture of it on my blog.
And if you keep going south on 6 (or 9, whichever) down the mountain you will eventually come to Peekskill and then you can go to Homestyle Bakery, which is way down in the awful areas near the train tracks. When you get there order a Double Temptation cake-each layer is chocolate cake, fudge, cheesecake, fudge, chocolate cake. And they have kickass hard rolls. Really kickass everything. It looks like a dump but it's just the best place. So many celebrities and stuff go there.
The other gorgeous view is when you cross the TZ and you look north. That's so beautiful it can make you cry.
I don't miss NY per se but I sure do miss some things about it. I miss the geology and the river most of all. And hard rolls (when we go we bring home dozens). And black and white cookies.
At first I thought you were talking about Anthony's Nose but I think it's Mt. Spitzenberg. That's a great climb, you get the heart pumping in a hurry and in the wintertime the view is just spectacular as you said. My friend and I went up there and so he calls his bro on his cell and says where we are and his bro goes that's a notorious gay hangout. Don't know if he was just messin' w/us but we didn't see any Mad Max biker dudes up there.
ReplyDeleteThe Frommer's Guide to Notorious Gay Hangouts, now there's an idea. Notorious Gay Hangouts in the Hudson Valley:)
ReplyDeleteIt's right on the side of the road.. I've never really seen anyone hanging out there unless they were touristy types taking pictures.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I haven't been there in years but it's just a big rock and a place to put the car.. everything's wide open.. doesn't seem like an ideal place for an illicit tryst to me.
I had to look it up and get a picture to confirm it.. it is Anthony's Nose. That's a hell of a view from there. You can almost see the lookout from where you turn off the bridge to get on 6... it's right up the top of the hill where the road curves to the left. Pictures are on my blog.
ReplyDeleteNever been up there yet but read alot about it. Sounds difficult to get up to now let me look at those pics.
ReplyDeleteI saw the pic and it looks very familiar like you can get the same view from the Bear Mtn. scenic lookout only higher up. I'm still the wee-est bit confused on how to get up there again and it always sounded a tad dangerous. In relation to the Bear Mtn. Bridge on the east side where the road goes to 6/202 to the right and 9D to the left walk me thru it again.
ReplyDeleteOkeydokey.
ReplyDeleteYou're on the bridge heading east. You get to the east side, there's 9D on the left and 6/202 on the right. Turn right.
Go up the road like a half mile or a mile. The road is following the curve of the mountain.
As you get to the top of the hill, still driving on the road, to your right you will see the lookout. You can park here and then jump the edge to go down on the rocks where our pictures were taken.
It's right on the side of the road.
If you decide to go, don't forget to keep going down the other side of the mountain on 6/202 and go to the bakery in Peekskill....
Wait a minute, we all call that just the Bear Mtn. Lookout and I've been there literally a dozen times! THAT'S Anthony's Nose? I thought that was part of the Appalachian Trail higher up. Anyway they got Bald Eagles here in winter and you can go halfway in to Iona Island through the marsh right up to the tracks. Desolate but nice, has a Michael Madsen/Ving Rhames drifter feel to it.
ReplyDeleteSomebody told me there's a gay spa around here:)
ReplyDelete