Saturday, July 08, 2006

Circumnavigating the Hudson

So what do a couple of parents on vacation do while their kids are in camp for the day?

Get your mind out of the gutter ... we have contractors in the apartment!

No, we went for a bike ride. After four days of rain and shopping we finally got active and did something requiring little money.

Hopping on the bikes, we rode north to just below the Little Red Lighthouse. At that point we decided to try a new set of directions for getting to the George Washington Bridge. D'oh. If Mike ever gets the GPS track on line, you will see how we wandered a bit before finally finding the entrance to the bridge walk / bikeway. This "new" way involved quite a bit of stair climbing and wandering through barely tramped pathways in Riverside park before emerging on the west side of New York Presbyterian Hospital. It then involved walking south until we could get around the southern edge of the hospital and climbing one of the nastiest hills in Manhattan. After a bit of fiddling around, and an attempt that ended at the CLOSED southern bridge path, we finally got to where we could climb multiple sets of stairs to the North bridge path. It was worth it, however, the ride across the bridge was cool and offered magnificent views.

Across the bridge we go ... here is some proof, taken from the west tower of the bridge with our backs to Manhattan.














We then rode south through New Jersey after going down a very steep, 3/4 mile long hill that wore most of the rubber off of my break pads as I hung on for dear life. We were almost to Hoboken (our destination) when we got, briefly, turned around. I do not want to say "lost" because we knew where we were and how to get home -- the long way -- but were a little unsure how to get to the Ferry that we wanted to take. We stood staring at a sign that said "To Hoboken" for quite a while before deciding that we could, indeed, bike this nasty looking stretch of bridge/road in order to get to the other side.

We then meandered through Hoboken and found the proper Ferry landing where we had these lovely views of home.

On the ferry, the "conductor" directed us to hook our handlebars over a rail and then shooed us inside, away from the bikes. We sat on the edge of our, very comfortable, seats for the short ferry ride praying that the bikes would not roll in to the river. They survived -- the ride was incredibly smooth -- and we were back on the greenway, pedaling for home. Total mileage (not counting the ferry ride) about 25 miles.

We will not do this ride with the kids until they finish the greenway in New Jersey. The road were just a bit too hairy for them. Today our goal is Brooklyn and the DUMBO branch of Chocolate Haven.












1 comment:

Ann said...

Does it count as exercise if I read about you riding your bike and walking a bunch?

:o)

Great photos! It is so much fun seeing pictures of other parts of the country. The bridges in the cornfields aren't that scenic.

Ann