Outblog No. 101

Purty Drive to Hudson from Albany.

In the past few weeks I've made many trips from Albany down to Hudson. I decided to try a different route to get there.

1. Took Route 9J down past Castleton-on-Hudson along Hudson River. Fast drive except for slight slow down in this beautiful little down, that shows signs of underinvestment like so many Hudson Valley towns.
2. Bared left on to Renselear CR 1. Start going up a ravine then get to some fairly flatland, horse farm, and some fairly new suburban like houses.
3. Becomes CR 21 in Columbia County. Kinderhook Valley. Lots of flat land around here, bordered by the Hudson River valley on one side and the Taconics on the other side. Lots of quality farm land around here, a lush green area, several big dairy CAFOs, and other farms. Great place for taking pictures, though little sholder for parking the truck off the road without going deep in the ditch. This area is so amazing.
4. Cut across beautiful downtown Kinderhook to 9H. This route beats having to go through all of Kinderhook then the ever so slow and ugly strip in Greenport north of Hudson.
5. Pass Martin Van Burean's House on 9H. Not a lot of farms nearby this section of road, and it becomes much more hilly then the flat valley.
6. Take Route 66 to Hudson. There is amazingly few stops along this road, along lot of interesting little houses rather then rotting big box stores and gas stations.

This adds about 10 minutes or 5 miles to the trip, but it beats going through all that traffic in East Greenbush and Greenport. Not to mention the views are just spectualar and it avoids those nasty curves on Route 9J.

I didn't really get much of a chance to get pictures this time, but I will back down to Hudson on another nice night. Shooting picture on Warren Street on Hudson also would be great fun, and while I'd love to get a sunset picture from the highlands grounds in Hudson, but it seems that wouldn't be so safe for somebody with a cowboy hat doing that being that it's next to housing projects.