Apparently I was very tired….I slept in until 10:30 this morning… can’t remember the last time I did that.  What was great was Lee shut the door and I slept through him going about his normal morning routine.  I wouldn’t have thought that was possible in such a small space, since I am a very light sleeper (many years of child rearing have programmed me)… not that I plan on sleeping that late often, but it’s a nice option to have.  When I woke up and got some coffee I was a bit agitated, but Lee was completely relaxed.  I don’t mean somewhat relaxed, or sort of relaxed but completely 100% relaxed.  Now my husband is a pretty intense guy… not in a bad way but he’s always working on something and I rarely see him just sitting.  He was outside on a chair, hair all messy, completely relaxed.  I can probably count on two hands the number of times I’ve seen him look like that and it was really nice.  He was also very frisky, you know, kissing and stuff, which was also nice.  Who knew that camping would  lead to  kissing and stuff … let’s just leave it at that since my kids will probably read this 🙂

After a nice big breakfast we decided to head out to Kingston.  I had poked around a bit on the web and had heard from a couple of people Kingston was nice and we headed down that way expecting a quaint little resort/tourist town.  Kingston used to be the capital of New York  and sits on an outlet of the Hudson River so we were expecting something like Lake Placid.  Unfortunately that is NOT what we found.  There are some beautiful old houses but they are really run down and Kingston is definitely a city in decline.  Even the waterfront area looked dilapidated and there was nothing worth getting out of the car for. As a matter of fact there were places I wouldn’t want to get out of the car.  This was a real bummer as I didn’t really have a plan B, but I pulled up this new app Lee had got me Roadside America and took a look for the nearest weird attraction.  As I’ve mentioned before I am a girl who would go out of her way to see the giant ball of string and Lee found a website full of just such attractions.  The website is free and the Iphone app was only $2.99. I saw that the giant fork in the road was only 25 minutes away.  In regular life I would have skipped it because it was an hour round trip, but Kingston was such a disappointment I wanted to try to see something.   This is where Karma comes in.  Karma and taking the road less traveled because you never know where it will lead you.

We were driving to the fork ( Lee was way more patient with my navigation struggles) when we saw a sign that said Historic home of FDR.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt is my favorite president and we had recently watched the movie “Hyde Park on the Hudson” so it suddenly clicked that we were very close to Hyde Park.  We made a right and I scrambled on the Ipad to find where we were headed and what was close by.  Hyde Park is a beautiful town.  Everything I expected Kingston to be, actually. As we were driving to FDR’s house, Lee saw a sign for a Vanderbilt mansion and we decided to turn in.  I have visited the Breakers and Marble house in Rhode Island and the Biltmore in NC so I was very excited to see another Vanderbilt house.  Because Karma was with us we arrived at 2:45 just in time for the 3pm tour.  The tour was fantastic and because this house was donated as a federal park (at the behest of my guy FDR) it only cost $8 for the tour.  We finished just in time to drive down to FDR’s house and take a quick look at the grounds and see he and Eleanor’s grave site.   The grave in particular meant something to me and held the same gravity of moment that I felt when I visited John F. Kennedy’s grave.

We had gone far off the path but found a wonderful way to spend the day, so we grabbed a quick bite and headed to the fork in the road.  I have to say that the fork was the best part of my day.  Completely tickled my funny bone and Lee said I was wonderfully weird, probably because I am equally impressed by a mansion,historical grave, and a goofy fork statue.  The fork statue pic is below… seriously don’t you love it.

Lessons Learned

• Roadside America is a great app
• Don’t be afraid to take the road less traveled; you never know what you will find
• If you see a giant fork in the road stop and take a picture

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