We like to think of ourselves as well-traveled.  I mean, Jen has scratched off almost all the states on her lotto map that are east of the Mississippi and not the deep south.  So it’s a suprise when we find new place relatively nearby that is worth visiting.

Tarrytown, NY, was not on our radar before Nadia signed up for a field hockey clinic/college visit nearby.  Jen did her typical quality research and planning — and, aside from a puzzling lack of in-town accommodations, things looked promising.   There was talk of some walking opportunities and some downtown quaintness.

Through a frustratingly difficult booking process she managed to get us a room in the only hotel (or inn, or B&B, or anything resembling a place we could stay) near the downtown area, and we were ready to go.

It should be noted that this was supposed to be a Jen and Nadia trip. Then only a few days before departure, the school district lifted the quarantine requirements for people traveling out of New England, which meant I could go without having to affect my on-site work schedule.  Jen had to work her magic with the frustrating hotel booking process to extend our stay and double our occupancy.

And then we were ready to go.

And go we did!

From Jen:

Those readers of a certain age may remember that Tarrytown was the home of Washington Irving, and the setting for the famous stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”.  I’m considering my daughters’ education incomplete, since both claimed to have never heard of Ichabod Crane or the Headless Horseman.  I tried to play an audio recording of the story on the way down, but Nadia immersed herself in her headphones and Lanie claimed to only understand about half of what the narrator was saying.  (The story was considerably denser, and written in much more flowery language, than I remembered.  It’s very possible that my fond memories come from an eighties animated special or something, rather than the actual text.  Still, it gave me a thrill of nostalgia to hear the long-forgotten but still familiar names: Katrina Van Pelt!  Bram Bones!)

Anyway, we arrived at the Sleepy Hollow Inn and Resort Center late Friday night.  It was not an especially nice hotel, and initially didn’t seem to be in the most appealing area, on a busy four-lane road.  It was very close to the Hudson, but there was no actual view or access, so the benefit from that was limited.  However, it proved to have one major advantage, at least for Bob and I — the hidden ability to walk to lots of cool places.

On Saturday morning we had to drop Nadia off at Pace University for her field hockey clinic. (This proved to be a bit of an adventure, since Apple maps led us to a random intersection in the middle of White Plains rather than the actual campus.  Fortunately we’d allowed plenty of time.) She’s been talking to the coach at Pace and we were hoping to do a tour while there, but with the coronavirus situation found it to be a bit of a prison state.  We all had to fill out an online questionnaire on our phones and display our green check mark to the guard to even be allowed to drive onto the campus.  (Bob accidentally filled out some question wrong and got a red X instead, so he stayed at the hotel with Lanie.)  Nadia had to go straight to the field, and parents were not even allowed to leave the car.  We got a brief driving tour while attempting to find the field, and it did appear to be quite a nice campus.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, after leaving Nadia the other three of us started on our first walking trip — onto the Mario Cuomo (formerly Tappan Zee) bridge.  It was only about half a mile from our hotel, and had a lovely walking/biking path along the side, with frequent viewing areas overlooking the Hudson and Tarrytown.  (It also had nice tall sturdy barriers between the traffic and the walkers, and the walkers and the edge, and so was much

less terrifying than my earlier experience walking the Golden Gate bridge with my friend Charles many years ago.)  We didn’t have time to do the whole ~8 mile round trip — plus Lanie had chosen fashion over form and worn shoes that always give her blisters — but we made it more than halfway.

 

After that we took a quick trip into downtown Tarrytown for lunch.  It was a cute, lively downtown — similar to our own Portsmouth.  And we found delicious brick oven pizza by the slice, which was just right for our tight timeframe to pick up Nadia.

In the afternoon, our lame children unaccountably wanted to stay in the hotel room and watch reruns of The Office and Despicable Me for the eight hundreth time, so Bob and I set off without them on our next walking adventure.  We’d seen something called the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail on the map, passing very close to our hotel.  We were picturing some kind of wooded path, but it

A little way after passing through Lyndhurst, we came to

the road leading to Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s estate.  We walked down to check it out, but unfortunately found that to be closed as well.  The grounds looked to be extensive and again, worth exploring on another day.

Eventually the trail led us into the village center of Irvington, another charming town center with shops and restaurants leading down to the river.  (I always love small towns, like our own Durham, that are safe and accessible enough to have groups of middle school kids wandering around town, buying ice cream and enjoying the nice weather.)  We stopped at an organic juicery for a drink before starting on the log walk back.  (We thought we could make a loop and walk back long the RiverWalk trail, right on the banks of the river, but unfortunately were blocked when we got to the Lyndhurst boundary.)

 

 

For dinner I had contemplated yet another walk along the Tarrytown river path, but even Bob and I were running out of steam by that point.  We settled for driving to a park on the

river and walking a short way to the picturesque lighthouse before heading into town for dinner.  (Well, most of us did.  Nadia refused to leave the car.)

 

And we weren’t even done yet!  Bob and I wanted to see the bridge lit up at night, so took one more walk a short way out before the walking path closed at 10.  The colorfully-lit bridge reminded us of the Zakim Bridge in Boston.

The next morning we packed up and headed southwest (driving across the bridge this time) to Drew University in New Jersey.  We were able to meet up with an assistant field hockey coach and a couple of players, who gave us a nice tour of the lovely campus (despite the rainy weather).  It seems like a great place — the campus is wooded and beautiful, the adjacent town is quaint and lively, and you can hop on a train and be in Manhattan in 30 minutes.

We had contemplated some other kind of activity in the afternoon, but the weather put a damper on everyone’s spirits and we decided to just have an early lunch and then tackle the five-hour drive home — rejuvenated with the thrill of having actually GONE SOMEWHERE.