Doozie and I headed out July 2nd to meet up with Jeffrey/Ichabod. Dooze made a great call selecting  84 to the Thruway over horrendous 95 to the Tappan Zee. Nice and easy no bumps at all and then the call came in from Jeff with the pickup coordinates. I looked at Google Earth just now and the trail is visible like a Nazca line at that location, etched across this field.

We  found him sitting with two section hikers from Texas at this  garden center . Those white crocs are his  off trail footwear. This area  is right on the NJ/NY border and it’s beautiful. I also have to mention that everyone we met in the Hudson River Valley on  both sides of the Hudson  were wonderful. It was  really a great  time and we want to  return  soon.

Food, it’s really about  feeding the  hikers , especially Ichabod

Off to Lunch!

The area is chock full of dining choices and this porch was the spot for us.

We grabbed a  hotel in Vernon for the night and  brought Jeffrey back to this location  for a slack pack day while we toured  a winery. So we  took  his  backpack and he  used a day pack we brought along. We selected a trail head to meet later  in the day, about 2pm.

Back on the trail.

It’s off to a winery for us , the Brotherhood Winery and it was a great take. We bought a case, lingered, nice. Several small wine bus tours  came by, it’s quite a venue.

Wine caves are good  on such a warm weekend.

We raced  back to the area to locate Jeffrey and provide some trail magic and no sooner had  we pulled up then he popped out of the woods at the trail head after hiking 15 miles with some other thru hikers. The  grill was cooking  in minutes  and  we all  enjoyed the shade . We had coolers  filled with  drinks, hot dogs, hamburgers. Doozie had baked a load of cookies, a swell picnic.

After this magic was concluded Jeffrey hopped in with us and we moved down to a Marriott in Mahwah NJ.

This location put us in close proximity to  Sleepy Hollow so since it’s  “Ichabod” we visited “Sunnyside”.

It was  of course  a special event day at Washington Irving’s home   with period dress and historical vignettes. It was set in 1850 on the eve of the  Civil War.

This is the view from Irvings porch, the Hudson on the South Side of  the Tappan Zee. Mr Irvings afternoons were not disturbed by the trains roaring through

We also  took a tour next door of Lyndhurst, a gothic mansion.

We enjoyed a great late lunch at Sweet Grass Grill in Tarrytown NY, bought the NY Times and headed  for the banks of the  Hudson River . We lazed on a blanket the rest of the day  till 9pm and fireworks. We watched  Nyack’s fireworks from our side  of  Hudson , then Irvington’s  on our side to the South, then ours went off, quite a show!

The Tappan Zee bridge needs to be replaced, they are concerned about the bridge . The approximate cost  is 16 billion.

The  sunset was spectacular.

The next day Ichabod was going to slack pack but when  I delivered the Dunkys to his room  I could feel that slacker vibe. So, he took another day off , we had a huge breakfast at a place I had spotted earlier( the big breakfast place, the hunter breakfast, you get it) and then drove up to West  Point for a tour.

The campus is closed  to just wandering around so we visited the  museum  and  visitors center. It was hot now for sure, we  observed some  training maneuvers on the way as there are  practice ranges on the mountain  set aside for such activities. We stopped at a store  to replenish our magic and  headed back to the same trail head to catch  any hikers emerging from the woods.

We served up another  round  of  goodies, cold  drinks, fruits , burgers and dogs.

The Klauks  and Doozie

The next day(Tuesday)we got back to  this same trail head with Jeffrey for the drop off and caught another big group.

Ichabod enjoying an early morning Bud.

There was another  trail angel there that took this last  picture.These angels  really perform a tremendous service to the through hikers, and many of them have completed the trail themselves. Jeffrey on the second trail magic day walked back into the woods to bring water  to a hiker that had run out. That hikers  pal Hi Tech  had literally stumbled into our clearing clearly dehydrated.

We expect to provide  several more episodes  of magic as Ichabod continues on, to Katahdin.

He crossed the Hudson on the morning of  July 8th .

Mike & Linda