I have been told by people who are visiting New York State for the first time, they thought the entire area was like New York City. Fortunately for us residents of New York State, most of the state’s beautiful landscapes and forests. Though I spend most of my time in the upper half of New York State, the lower half has a lot of beautiful areas and attractions.

I did a previous video on Cooperstown, New York (https://youtu.be/lT3-v37IJxo). Though Cooperstown wouldn’t really be considered “downstate” New York, some of us northern New Yorkers would not consider it upstate either. It’s technically called leather stocking area, and we might call it Catskills.

I lived in the middle of the Hudson Valley at Newburgh New York . That’s about 30 miles south of Poughkeepsie, Hyde Park, New Paltz, and the Shawangunk mountains where we spent the weekend of November 11. I was always amazed during the two years I lived there how people hustled around and commuted to New York City, yet the surrounding landscape and natural beauty of the area was so breathtaking. At the time I lived there I flew a private plane quite a bit. And we used to fly down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty and back. The area they called the Hudson Highlands and the Shawangunk mountains just made the short few hour flights so nice.

While the camping and RV resorts in the area can be expensive, and I could not find too many boondocking sites, it’s worth the cost. The Sam Pryor Gateway campground that I stayed at was a let down for me as an RVer. However, I was told by other tent campers that on most weekends it is full. It appears they have a dedicated clientele of technical rock climbers.

But let’s talk about Hyde Park. I’m not totally engrossed in learning about history. But I do think it’s interesting how we memorialize our past heroes. But I did watch the documentary by Ken Burns about Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. It really makes them sound so much larger than life that I wanted to go and see what the reality was. And while there is a large amount of documentation on the wonderful things they both did during their lifetimes, touring the place they lived and the items they held important on a day-to-day basis makes them seem much more I like normal people. Once Franklin became president he expanded on his house to make it acceptable to have international guests like the king and queen of England. And they did own several different houses and various property, but really it was no more than a large farm to us today. So it makes them seem so much more human and average, though their accomplishments were so significant.

I also like to take time to really look around an area when I visit someplace and I don’t often get the opportunity to put that in my videos. But this time I did add some of the little things that are kind a unique and special about the area. Like the American culinary Institute, and the mid-Hudson walkway. Both of those things made the weekend more enjoyable, though if I had eaten at the Institute I think I would’ve been much happier than my freeze-dried lasagna. Some other things we did in the area that didn’t make it to the video is we visited some wineries. There are many wineries in the Hudson Valley, some of them very old. Tasting was a bit expensive ($10) for five tastes of different wines. But it’s the only way I know of to find a wine you might like is to taste it. We also wandered into a former insane asylum built around the middle 1800s. Unfortunately we were chased out of their and so could not get any good video. But it was a very big beautiful complex that was supposed to be turned into apartments. I wonder what kind of paranormal activity your apartment would have if you lived there.