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Exploring the Hudson River Valley
- Becky Wagaman
- Jun 25
- 8 min read
After anchoring for several days in Haverstraw, NY in front of the Elks Club, we went back to Nyack to carry out our original plan of renting a mooring ball and a rental car for a few days.
We reserved one of the 6 available mooring balls for transient boaters at Nyack Boat Club on Dockwa, secured the boat and then headed up to shore. There is an Enterprise rental car location nearby and it only took us about 15 minutes to walk there. On the way, we saw a historical sign that indicated that this part of town had been part of the underground railroad!
This was our first time seeing downtown Nyack and it has a cute, urban vibe on main street. There is no shortage of places to eat downtown, that is for sure! There are lots of eclectic and ethnically diverse food options to choose from, which I just love! In fact, while we were picking up our rental car, we met a man in the office who owned an Italian restaurant nearby. He insisted that we visit while we were in the area and promised that he serves up the best pizza around. We kind of smiled and rolled our eyes because every restaurant owner claims that they have “the best” of whatever it is they serve, but he showed us some photos from his website and the food did look incredible. We told him we’d try and make it and then headed out, not sure what we’d get into that weekend! It is always such a strange and wonderful feeling when we finally get back in a car after not having driven for so long. I think before that, it had been since Christmas since we had driven a car!
We decided to be responsible adults and the very first thing we did that night was drive straight to a laundromat and got our chores out of the way. Finding a laundromat on a regular basis had proven to be trickier than we thought, so we figured we had better just go do it while we had a convenient way to get to one. The street parking in Nyack is a little wonky and you have to park on opposing sides of the street depending on what day of the week it is. This is mainly for snow removal in the winters but we were told by members of the boat club that parking is enforced even in the summer! We definitely had to pay attention when parking each night!
The next morning, we got in the car without any real plan and decided to just drive around and see the area.
We first drove to West Point Military Academy, which was less than an hour away. We couldn’t do the tour because we had Bella with us, but we drove right up to the gates. Just like the Naval Academy in Annapolis, West Point is architecturally beautiful and it is a sight to see for sure!
I had read about an old winery nearby called Brotherhood, which claimed to be the oldest winery in the country, so we decided to drive over and do a tasting.
They were supposed to be having live music, but when we arrived, nothing was really going on. We decided to do a tasting anyway since we had taken the time to drive there. The buildings were pretty and there is a restaurant on site, but we were “greeted” by a less than pleasant older woman who seemed to really have her panties in a bunch that we used the wrong door to enter, so between that and the music being cancelled, it kind of started the visit off with the wrong impression for us. Our sommelier ended up being a very nice woman and was very knowledgeable about the wines and gave lots of great recommendations for foods to pair the wine with. We actually really liked all of the wines and there weren’t any that we wouldn’t drink again if given the chance.
Bella was waiting for us in the car, so we didn’t stay long.
We instead decided to head up to Angry Orchard Cider House which was way more of the vibe we had been hoping for. Everyone was super friendly there from the time we pulled in the parking lot. They have a nice trail through the orchards that you get to walk through to get to the main cider house and they are pet friendly, so Bella didn’t have to sit this one out!
We took her to Leinenkugel’s in Wisconsin a few years back and these types of places just seem to love dogs – definitely our kind of people! We ordered a flight of different flavored ciders to try and then went outside to listen to the live band that was playing. It was a little chilly out that day, so there were fire pits spread throughout the tables, a food truck serving up delicious comfort food like pulled pork, mac-n-cheese and pizza, and it was overall just a light-hearted, jovial atmosphere!
The winery had felt a little stuffy, so it was a breath of fresh air to find the cidery instead! It started to rain for awhile so we headed back to the boat and dropped Bella off and fed her dinner, then we decided to go find the Italian restaurant that we had heard about the day before.
When we arrived at Mille Luci, we didn’t know quite what to expect because it was located in a strip mall in the same parking lot as Stop and Shop, but we decided to give it a fair chance before judging it. The inside was very tastefully decorated, and we received excellent service! We ordered 2 different pizzas to try, and they were both incredible. Like, I am still dreaming of those pizzas! LOL.
The owner definitely didn’t lie about it being the best pizza around and I would highly recommend a stop if you are in the Nyack/New City area. The restaurant is located at: 170 N Main St, New City, NY 10956. We went and said hello to the owner and he came and joined us at our table with his son for a bit. They were even so kind as to bring us each a complimentary giant meatball to try just to thank us for stopping in, and those were delicious too!
In life, we are given many opportunities to say “yes” but a lot of people say “no” because it is easier and it is more comfortable. We said yes to trying this man’s pizzeria and had to put in a little effort to drive there and find it, but dang was it worth it and we had a nice time. Same thing the week before when we were at Elks – we met a nice man, and he invited us to go hiking and we said yes when we could’ve said no since he was a stranger, but we had a fantastic day hiking with him and saw some beautiful sites. There is still so much good in this world, and this was evidenced multiple times over that week!
The next day, we got up and drove across the bridge to the other side of the river to the village of Sleepy Hollow.
This village was where the famed story of Sleepy Hollow and Ichabod Crane drew its inspiration. They have a statue of the Headless Horseman downtown, so we drove over to see it. There is a huge cemetery that we drove by that is framed by a tunnel of trees and I don’t know if it was because we had just watched the movie with Johnny Depp that had been filmed in this area or what, but it had a sort of creepy air about it that added to the mystique of the town.
A couple of towns north, stood the famed maximum security prison, Sing Sing in Ossining, NY where over 600 people were put to death by electric chair. You really couldn’t see much from the road, but we had accidentally anchored near there a few nights before then and could see the whole thing from the water. It was sort of creepy after we found out the history of the place!
Now it is just a museum and kind of neat to see. It’s funny because when we told the GPS where to navigate to and we said, “Sing Sing”, the GPS personality literally started singing to us. Funny, but not very helpful when you are sitting in traffic needing directions! LOL
Throughout our driving around, we also saw Osborn Castle at Castle Rock Park, which is said to have been the inspiration for the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle in the “Wizard of Oz”. We promise we didn’t mean for our day to end up as a tour of so many sinister places! It just kind of happened that way! LOL
As we were driving around, a man that Dustin had messaged about a motorhome that was for sale responded finally and said it was still available. This was a model we have been considering buying and it was only a couple of hours away, so we decided to drive to Troy on a whim and take a look. We already had Bella with us, so we figured, “why not?”
The motorhome was actually in pretty decent shape but it wasn’t quite as awesome of a layout as we had originally thought. The owners were very nice and took us for a test drive but ultimately, we decided to walk away because it just wasn’t quite the right layout for us, and their asking price was a bit high.
We ended up quite a way away from the boat that day and didn’t get back until around 10pm!
The next day was Memorial Day, and we had been invited to a barbeque at the home of our new friend, Tom’s (the man who we had gone hiking with from Elks). Being so far away from friends and family is particularly tough on holidays when everyone is spending time together, so we welcomed the chance to go to a party and meet some new people! Many of Tom’s friends and family are firemen or policemen and it was pretty cool being around this type of crowd on Memorial Day. Tom used to own a local deli, so there was a ton of really good food!
After having a great time at the barbeque, Dustin and I wanted to squeeze in one more hike before we had to turn in our rental car the next day, so we drove a short distance to Bear Mountain to hike Fort Montgomery’s Trail of the Fallen. We figured this would be a fitting trail to hike to honor the fallen soldiers on Memorial Day. There were some hilarious signs at the start of the trail!
There is a short but steep climb to the top with some rock scrambles where we had to use ropes to pull ourselves up as we climbed.
The views at the top were second to none and overlooked the Hudson River Valley and the Bear Mountain Bridge.
There was a massive rock memorial at the top of the mountain with all sorts of paraphernalia left in remembrance of fallen soldiers. This area of New York is very patriotic for a number of reasons (9/11, West Point Military Academy, famous battlefields, etc), and it was a neat place to spend Memorial Day.
On the way back to the boat that day, we drove past IPEC Power Plant, which is a decommissioned nuclear plant on the Hudson River. When I worked at Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan for Entergy, many of the employees at there transferred from IPEC when it was closed down. I had always heard how beautiful the area was, so it was cool to see it with my own eyes. I recruit for many nuclear and government sites across the country and it’s crazy how many of the sites I’ve actually laid eyes on just because of our nautical travels!
We really enjoyed getting off the boat and exploring a little deeper that weekend while we waited for the locks to open up on the Erie Canal!
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