Bucket List: Kingston to Waterford

The next day after the kids left, we kept the rental car to visit the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park New York. Ross & Barb (Attitude Changer) and Jan (Navigator) went with us. This incredible mansion has 54 rooms and was built between 1896 and 1899 and was the spring and fall home for Frederick Vanderbilt. It is now owned by the National Park Service. The 211 acres of that the mansion sits on were amazing and provided the Vanderbilt’s the ability to be self sustained with their own hydroelectric plant and farm animals for fresh meat!

We left Kingston on Thursday, 6/12/14 with Attitude Changer and headed to Albany, NY. On our way to Albany we passed West Point. We pulled into the Albany Yacht Club later that afternoon. While there we rented a car so Jan could get her hair cut and visit Wally World to get provisions. When Jan was getting her haircut by the owner of the salon she invited Valerie and her husband to join us at the Yacht Club for dinner that night. Ross, Barb, Jan and I had a nice dinner with Valerie and Paul. They live in a house that they designed and built themselves overlooking the Erie Canal.

We ended up staying in Albany for 4 days because of heavy wind and rain. The downpour of rain caused the rivers to rise and cause flooding. The high waters shut down the Erie Canal and all boats had to stay put in Waterford which was our next destination and there was no room for us to dock. On the morning of 6/16 we were advised that the Erie Canal would open the next day so we took off to Waterford and side tied to one of our buddy boats, Average Looper. Waterford is the place where boaters make a decision to either go west through the Erie Canal or north up to Lake Champlain. We had a bon voyage party that night with all of the looper boats we had been traveling with on and off since Norfolk. All of the looper boats except for Average Looper, Navigator, Limelight and us were going the Erie Canal route.