While the hurricane weather has past, summer weather did not return and fall, with cooler temperatures, is in the air. After taking the bike and baggage four flights down the elevator at David's apartment, I pedaled south to Battery Park to pick up a rental car to get me out of Manhattan. Similarly as on the way in, bridges and tunnels across the Hudson River didn't allow for bicycle traffic on the way out. A leisurely ride through Rockefeller Park near the ferry terminals, and along the Esplanade with scenic views of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, marked the end of my New York City cycling experience.
Today's travel follow the Hudson River north, across the Washington Bridge, to Fort Orange, better known today as Albany, NY. Almost four hundred years ago, Dutch colonists controlled the Hudson Valley, and signs of this distant past were still present, most notably in Kingston, then called Wiltwyck. History here tells of the conflicts between the Dutch settlers and the Esopus Indians and the struggles and successes of the Peter Stuyvesant administration.
