With the Garrett grandparents in town and my husband out of town
for a business meeting, I was on my own for entertaining. Thankfully, we haven’t had a lack of things
to do since moving to Upstate New York in May.
I’m still always surprised when I come across something in a tourism
book or online that I haven’t heard of yet….y’all are busting at the seams with
stuff!
Brett’s grandparents live in Abilene, Texas and a good friend
there has relatives in Kingston. His
grandmother Peggy knew she wanted to say hi while she was up in their neck of the
woods and I knew it would make a good day trip for the two of us. (We had worn Brett’s grandfather Don out by
this time) After spending the afternoon having
lunch (and dessert) in Kingston, Peggy and I headed down to Poughkeepsie to
burn off those calories.
We made our way to the Walkway over the Hudson New York State
Park. The amazing bridge is a sight to
see! Blessed with beautiful weather, we
caught breathtaking views of the leaves during the peak season. Seeing
the Hudson River from a bird’s eye view was amazing! The walkway was
filled with tons of folks walking their dogs, bikes, strollers, kids on
scooters, joggers and plain ol’ sightseers like us. And what a walk we
had…touted as the tallest pedestrian bridge in the world at 212
feet above the Hudson, it’s also one of the longest at 6,767 feet from end to
end!
The bridge has protective screens that keep people from tossing
stuff over the rails into the streets below and volunteers are on the bridge to
help folks with questions. We thought it was interesting that there was
also a ‘mental health button’ you could push on an emergency box that would put
you straight in touch with someone who could literally talk you off the ledge.
It looked a lot like OnStar.
The bridge has an interesting history…in 1855 an engineer
proposed that a railroad bridge be built across the Hudson River at
Poughkeepsie. Folks thought he was just plain nuts and tossed the idea
aside. It wasn’t until 1871 travelers started to think crossing the river
probably was a good idea and efforts began to get passage across. Finally,
in late 1888, the first train went “cho-cho” over the bridge! Things
were going good for the bridge until the 1960s. Then along came the
Interstate Highway System and a decline in manufacturing in the Northeast. Suddenly, the Poughkeepsie Bridge was just
another out-of-the-way, uneconomical hunk of steel & concrete. The
final nail was placed in the coffin in 1974 when a fire damaged 700 feet of
bridge decking. She sat abandoned and alone for years.
The bridge was deeded to a nonprofit organization called Walkway
over the Hudson in 1998. The gung-ho group raised more than $30 million
to restore the bridge and make it part of the New York Parks Department.
The bridge opened to the public in October 2009. That year, nearly
a million people crossed the bridge!
We
walked waaaaay over the Hudson and think if you’re ever in the area, you should
too. You won’t be disappointed!
