We cross the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie and head to FDR home. Well you know that FDR is the holy father of all Democrats, so Carole is making a trip to Mecca. I was able to get her photo sitting beside FDR and Eleanor. I know it may be the high point of her life.
The house is OK, nothing to write home about. It is 22,000 sq ft with lots of little rooms. It is nearly 200 years old and was remodeled and added on to several times mostly by FDR. Actually, the house is not in very good shape. There are some foundation issues that reflect thru the house, probably due to adding a third floor without modifying the foundations. I started to give them a business card and tell call me. The grounds are nice and there is a great rose garden where FDR is buried along with Eleanor and his two dogs.
Maybe if we hadn’t just visited one of Jefferson’s homes it would have been more impressive. I still suggest if you get a chance to visit it, do so. The park service did a good job of portraying FDR and his Presidency. He was a very interesting person and charismatic leader. He apparently really enjoyed people and made each of them feel special. They talked a lot about how he managed a public life after developing Polio.
Then back in the car for three more hours to Mystic. It was good to see the ocean again. We had started taking it and eating seafood for granted. The oil spill has limited our access to the to both we are looking forward to floating again on Surprise.
It is very different traveling in September as compared with traveling in the summer. There are no crowds and no kids. The crowd is much older. Our tour groups have been small and I have only seen a couple of kids at any of the stops. Now I am trying to decide if is better to deal with kids or a bunch of old farts who can’t get around and slow down the tour group.
Traveling this time has also been very different. We have the GPS that tells us where to go. You don’t have to worry about missing a road sign and winding up on some dead end road. We also have the Ipad with a wireless network in the vehicle. Those of you who know Carole well know that she likes to ask lots of questions. On one trip with Tony and Kaye we limited her to three questions a day. So on this trip when she asks a question I just say, “Why don’t you Google that and see”. We have asked Google about a lot of stuff as we ride along. We also have our satellite radio so we can enjoy the same radio station all day. Of course, we both have full time access to email and phone calls thru our Blackberries. Does this mean we really are high tech rednecks? Actually, the only issue is keeping everything charged up. We had to go to Wal-Mart and buy a plug strip to have enough plugs in our hotel rooms.
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